action, and yet subsequently legislated out of office the officers who raised the troops, organized, provided for, and instructed them, and afterward led them to battle and victory. I am fully persuaded that the legislation just referred to was based upon an imperfect knowledge of the facts, and for this reason, with due respect to the legislative authority, I have called attention to it.

The services of Brigadier-General Roane in Arkansas and Louisiana have been mentioned in my previous report. In that report I also specially refer to the prompt patriotism with which Brigadier-Generals Hebert, McCulloch, and Nelson, and the officers and men of the various Texan regiments came to my assistance.

In the various staff departments the officers necessary for the proper working of each were appointed by me, and as a body displayed much zeal and efficiency. A list of these appointments was submitted by me to Lieutenant-General Holmes, and was approved by him and forwarded to Richmond for confirmation. UP to the date when I was relieved from duty west of the Mississippi River a few of these officers only had been commissioned. The remainder continued to act without commissions and without compensation. None of them are supernumeraries, and every one deserves to be appointed. For the benefit of the service and an act of justice to them I earnestly hope that commissions will be sent them at an early day.

The officers composing my staff performed services greatly exceeding the requirements of their several positions and full of the most arduous and exacting labor in the discharge of office duty; and in organizing, instructing, and providing for the troops they were constantly attentive and laborious. On the field they displayed the courage and coolness becoming to them.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. C. HINDMAN,

Major-General.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector-General.

HEADQUARTERS TROOPS IN THE FIELD,
CAMP ON MULBERRY CREEK,

On Van Buren and Clarksville Road, November 3, 1862.

GENERAL: My recent letters, having been written hastily, do not present as connected a statement of events in this region as may be desired. I therefore address you this as a more complete report. It, however, will be to some extent deficient, from the fact that I have utterly failed, notwithstanding many efforts, to get full reports from Brigadier-General Rains and Cooper.

On August 24 I assumed command at Fort Smith. Our troops then held the line of the Boston Mountains as far west as that place and the line of the Arkansas River thence westward. The country above in Northwestern Arkansas and the Cherokee Nation was overrun by marauding parties of jayhawkers, tories, and hostile Indians, and was fast being depopulated. The country adjacent to our line was almost wholly exhausted of subsistence and forage. Our force was about 2,500 armed white infantry, about 3,600 armed white cavalry, and an unknown number of Indian cavalry, estimated at about 3,000 armed men. There were fourteen pieces of artillery. The small-arms scarcely deserved the name. There was very little camp equipage.