HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY,
Doaksville, December 21, 1863.

Brigadier-General COOPER, Commanding:

GENERAL: General Steele directs that you send a small party under command of a reliable officer on the direct road (Towson and Fort Smith), with orders to proceed at least as far as the Riddle and Waldron road, if they discover nothing previous to reaching that point.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

B. G. DUVAL,

Lieutenant and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY,
Doaksville, December 22, 1863.

Brigadier-General COOPER:

GENERAL: Your messenger left before I had read your note. Not having received a report from you for some time, I am not well posted as to the number of men you can get together, but I should think enough to meet 300 cavalry. The scout sent this morning should give further intelligence of their movements. I suppose that the Second Choctaw is much scattered, as well as the others, and out of ammunition. There is a small supply in the quartermaster's store-house, which can be obtained in case your ordnance officer has none here.

Your obedient servant,

WM. STEELE,

Brigadier-General.

[P. S.]-Collect your men as soon as possible. The receipt to-day of funds will enable you to do so more promptly.

HEADQUARTERS WOOD'S BATTALION MISSOURI CAVALRY,
Near Murfreesborough, Ark., December 23, 1863.

Major HENRY EWING,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

MAJOR: I have the honor to acknowledge the general's instructions relating to subsistence, and remaining at this locality longer, and must inform him that the command has now been here thirty-five days; that remaining longer may impoverish the vicinity too much, as also break down the teams by constant hauling at long distances.

My last accounts from Colonel Shelby's command places them at a point that can well guard the approaches to this direction; and to save my means of transportation for any move that may occur, as also to lessen the evils upon the citizens that would necessarily occur, would ask, if not inconsistent, to move 20 to 25 miles westward, at the locality named by the general, 10 or 15 miles from Washington, on the Murfreesborough and Washington road. There is no forage to be had.

I am, major, your obedient servant,

R. C. WOOD,

Major, Commanding.