and Eighth of Confederate, Colonel W. B. Wade: Eighth Regiment Mississippi and part of Seventh Mississippi Cavalry, Colonel T. W. White; Twenty-eighth Regiment Mississippi and part of Seventh Mississippi Cavalry, Major McBee; Eighteenth Battalion Mississippi Cavalry and Companies C, D, E, H, and K, Fifth Mississippi Cavalry, Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Chalmers.

II. Brigade commanders will reorganize and consolidate the regiments, battalions, and companies nof their respective commands in accordance with the recent act of Congress on that subject.

III. As soon as the reorganization is completed commanding officers will forward muster-rolls of companies and field and staff officers, and complete roster of all the officers of their command, to these headquarters, to be sent to the War Department. The roster will show the name, rank, company, and regiment of each officer, and the date of his commission or appintment, and when he is of the commissary or quartermaster's department, whether he is bonded or not.

By order of Brigadier-General Chalmers:

W. A. GOODMAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. CHALMERS' DIVISION OF CAVALRY, Numbers 16.
Columbus, Miss., February 18, 1865.

I. Companies A, B, F, G, and I, of Fifth Regiment Mississippi Cavalry, are relieved from duty with the detachment of McCulloch's brigade, and are ordered to report to Brigadier-General Armstrong. The senior officer present with these companies will take command of them and proceed to West Point at once and report to Brigadier-General Armstrong.

II. Colonel Lowry, commanding Gholson's brigade, will proceed in pursuance of verbal orders from these headquarters, to consolidate the parts of regiments now under his command into one regiment, to be commanded by Colonel Ashcraft. The consolidation will be made in strict conformity with the recent act of Congress on that subject. In all cases when a company has thirty-two enlisted men present for duty, with serviceable horses, its present organization will be retained; but when any company has less than that number it will be consolidated either with one of the retained companies or with one or more other companies to the number required by law. Each company formed by consolidation must have three officers (one captain, one first and one second lieutenant), eight non-commissioned officers, and not less than sixty-four privates. When any officer of a retained company is disabled disqualified, or incompetent for the discharge of his duties he will be brought before the board for the examination of "Disqualified, Disabled, and Incompetent Officers" for this division.

* * * * *

IV. The brigade heretofore known as Mabry's Brigade is broken up and the regiments composing it will report as hereinafter directed, viz: The Thirty-eighth Regiment Mississippi Cavalry and the Fourteenth Regiment Confederate Cavalry will report to Brigadier General W. Adams at Jackson, Miss. The Fourth and Sixth Regiments Mississippi Cavalry will report to Brigadier General P. B. Starke, near Columbus, Miss.

V. The following regiments, battalions, and companies will report to Brigadier General Wirt Adams, commanding brigade cavalry for duty: Ninth Regiment Mississippi Cavalry, Wood's regiment (Mississippi)

63 R R-VOL XLIX, PT I