assume command of the Army of Tennessee. Give to Lieutenant-General Polk full information as to the condition of the department, and leave with him the officers of the general staff. A letter of instructions will be sent you at Dalton.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE,

No. 298.
Richmond, December 16, 1863.

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XVIII. Brig. Gen. G. J. Pillow, Provisional Army, C. S., is relieved from duty as superintendent of the volunteer and conscript service, Department No. 2, and will report to Lieutenant Gen. W. J. Hardee, commanding, &c., at Dalton, Ga.

Colonel John S. Preston,chief of the bureau of conscription, will assume control of conscription in the States lately under the charge of General Pillow.

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By command of the Secretary of War:

JNO. WITHERS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. SECOND REGIMENT MISSISSIPPI STATE CAVALRY, City Point, December 16, 1863.

Brigadier-General FERGUSON:

DEAR SIR: Sergeant Nixon and 8 of my men were stopped by your pickets yesterday. Your lieutenant commanding pickets said that his orders are to stop Lowry's men, dismounted them, and send the men to your headquarters. The order I regard as illegal, and sounds more like a threat from a scolding wife or an old maid, but as I know that it comes from one of the other sex, I will have to submit it to Governor Clark and Joseph E. Johnston. If the order was intended to retaliate for my arrest of the man Anderson, I wish to know it, for the reason that Anderson is a deserter from my regiment, and belongs to a company in the regiment raised by myself, and by authority from the Secretary of War, who were regularly mustered into this regiment and have never been transferred or discharged from the same; but the officers, Wallis and Page, on leaving the command, mutinied, deserted, and resisted the order of the commanding officer, for which charges have been preferred against them, and by your order they are subsisted and protected. These facts, together with the President's order, I intend to submit to General Johnston and Governor Clark. By the President of the Confederate States we are recognized and respected as officers and soldiers, and with you only have I had any trouble whatever. I made a demand on Colonel Richardson for some men of Company A, of my command, who were mustered into Confederate service by Captain Stride, and Colonel Richardson very promptly returned the men. General Lee, in his note to me in relation to Anderson, says that the course I pursued with Anderson will result in a dispute or contest between the Confederate and State authorities, which is earnestly by me, as a positive understanding between these