Please let me hear from you at the earliest practicable moment. I earnestly hope that you will concur with me in the views I take and be pleased to give me the solicited aid.

Very truly,

ANDREW JOHNSON,

Military Governor.

WASHINGTON, June 18, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK, Corinth, Miss.:

It would be of both interest and value to us here to know how the expedition toward East Tennessee is progressing, if in your judgment you can give us the information with safety.*

A. LINCOLN.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE OHIO,
Camp near Florence, June 18, 1862.

Captain SINTON,

Commissary of Subsistence at Belew's Landing:

You are hereby directed to proceed at once to General Wood's headquarters in Tuscumbia, and inform him that you are detailed to take charge of the commissary stores coming by rail to that point. General Wood will inform you where the stores are to be put, and will furnish the necessary guards and details on your application. Reports daily for the next ten days to these headquarters the amount of stores on hand and inform me of your whereabouts. You are to supply any of the troops of this army.

Respectfully,

JAMES B. FRY,

Colonel and Chief of Staff.

HUNTSVILLE, June 18, 1862.

General BUELL:

I have ventured to send a party to-day across the Tennessee at Decatur to reconstruct the telegraph line. I fear they may be in danger, but the chief operator was very anxious to be at work. I repeat my question of yesterday: Am I to store half the rations ordered at Athens and pass the other half across the river to Decatur?

The enemy managed this morning to overpower a small picket sent out by Colonel Sill and posted near Rankin's Ferry; 2 are captured, 1 killed. I fear they will learn our numbers and may now give us trouble.

There are small bands of cavalry hovering around us almost everywhere, and we have no cavalry to destroy them.

I have been enabled to furnish one hundred and thirty teams to aid Captain Bingham. Have just returned from Elk River and Decatur. Have ordered the tunnel to be planked, which will reduce our haul 23 miles when finished.

O. M. MITCHELL,

Major-General.

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*See Halleck to President, June 21, p. 43.

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