under Major General M. L. Smith, including General Liddell's brigade and Colonel Baker's. Battery Huger (on the point between Blakely and Appalachee Rivers) can be easily shelled from Spanish Fort, being one mile distant and much lower; cannot be held long after Spanish Fort surrenders. Battery Huger has ten heavy guns, 7,8, and 10-inch; also six field pieces and a garrison of 125 men. Has a bomb-proof, commanded by Captain Durrive, Twenty-second Louisiana. Battery Tracy (on right bank of Appalachee River, above Battery Huger) has two 7-inch Brooke guns, one 10-inch columbiad, and two 42-pounders. Garrison, sixty men, commanded by Major Washington Marks, Twenty-second Louisiana. There are ten rows of spiles across Blakely River, opposite Battery Huger, and seven rows across Appalachee River; 150 yards below these is a line of torpedoes across both rivers, the torpedoes two feet apart secured to the ends of a log, the other end being sunk by a weight, so that the torpedoes rise and fall with the tide. The spiles are driven two feet below the surface of the water. No obstructions or batteries on the rivers above those mentioned. No obstructions or batteries on the Mobile River above Mobile. Boats of eight or nine feet can go up Blakely River. There is another channel with about the same depth of water in Conway's Bayou, which runs nearly northwest from Big Bateau Bay into Tensas River (as called on most of the maps). The informant calls it Spanish River. The mouth of the Bayou is indicated by an old hulk sunk and projecting from the water. This is the only obstruction in this channel. It is considered entirely practicable. If the first route is attempted the spiles could be easily drawn with the proper apparatus. There are no guns at Choctaw Bluffs or Selma mounted, and the gun-boats should go at once to Montgomery. The redoubts around the city are manned by the artillerists of Hood's army who lost their guns. The curtain is manned by citizens (militia). Two brigades from Hood's army (Manigault's and Gibson's) arrived in Mobile just before informant left, February 24. About 18,000 men in and around Mobile with plenty of provisions for a long siege. One-third of them are militia. The informant had charge of the works on the eastern shore up to the time of leaving.

SPECIAL
HEADQUARTERS ARMY AND DIVISION, FIELD ORDERS,
OF WEST MISSISSIPPI, No. 2.
March 8, 1865.

To carry out the provisions of General Orders, No. 242, War Department, and General Orders, No. 42, headquarters Military Division of West Mississippi, series of 1864,* the following regulations in regard to the amnesty oath are established for the army in the field:

1. The officers authorized to order the amnesty oath to be administered are, general officers commanding divisions, separate brigades, districts, or posts, and higher commanding generals.

2. The applicant for amnesty must come within the provisions of the general orders above referred to. He shall file with one of the general officers authorized to order the amnesty oath to be administered a sworn petition setting forth clearly, completely, and distinctly the service or aid of any kind that he has in any rendered to the rebel authorities,

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*See Vol. XLI, Part II, p. 916.

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55 R R-VOL XLIX, PT I