SPECIAL ORDERS, HDQRS. ROSS' BRIGADE CAVALRY, Numbers 5.
Near Lexington, Miss., March 20, 1865.

The following officers of the brigade staff are assigned to the respective duties, as follows: Captain P. B. Plummer, acting assistant adjutant-general. He will attend exclusively to the duties of that department. Lieutenant J. P. Sykes, acting inspector-general, whose duty it shall be to follow up and superintend the execution of all orders that pass through or emanate from these headquarters. It is made his special duty to see that the rolls are called, absentees reported and punished, and will report promptly any neglect of duty on the part of officers of this command. Captain H. C. Armstrong, in addition to his duties as aid-de-camp, will superintend the granting of all passes, approving, registering, and receiving the same, in obedience to the orders from these headquarters. Lieutenant W. T. McClatchey, Ninth Texas Cavalry, is announced as provost-marshal of this brigade, and will be obeyed and respected accordingly.

DUD. W. JONES,
Colonel, Commanding Brigade.

HEADQUARTERS RODDEY'S BRIGADE,

Tuscaloosa, Ala., March 20, 1865.

Lieutenant General T. TAYLOR:

GENERAL: This letter will be delivered to you by Colonel O'Neal, who has been ordered to North Alabama to collect and forward to their commands all absentees from the Army of Tennessee. He ogles to your headquarters to consult you. The Sixteenth, Twenty-seventh, Thirty-fifth, and Forty-ninth Alabama Regimens are nearly all at home. They are in the section of country abandoned to the enemy, and experience has convinced me that these men can only be got out of the mountains by persuasive means. We cannot use force, because they are protected by the enemy. They can be brought back to the service if allowed to be mounted. Numbers have applied to me to be placed in my cavalry, which I have refused. I have sent numbers to the army, and somehow they return. I would suggest that as these men are in your department you should take some steps to bring hem back to the service. They are skeleton regiments, reduced by long service in the field, and while General Hood was at Tupelo, I asked him to transfer these regiments and the Twenty-sixth Alabama Regiment to me. I am satisfied if my request had been granted I would now have 1,000 men in the field out of these regiments, commanded by veteran officers, whereas as it now stands not 100 are in the field, and I do not believe they can be obtained in any other way. Colonel O'Neal can fully explain to you all the facts, and I bespeak for him your aid and assistance.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

P. D. RODDEY,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DISTRICT OF FLORIDA,
Tallahassee, March 20, 1865.

General J. E. JOHNSTON:

GENERAL: Since I have been in command in this military district (I assumed command on the 2nd ultimo) several raids have been made on it, and one demonstration of a more formidable nature designed to get