HEADQUARTERS, Huntsville, August 6, 1862.

Major SIDELL, Nashville:

I will send Captain Morton to select sites and lay off works. Examine the ground yourself, so as to enable him to understand the situation readily, as the time is short and he is greatly occupied elsewhere. My notion is that for the present the works should consist of small redoubts in the edge of the city or very close to it, and commanding the main avenues of important points.

D. C. BUELL.

HEADQUARTERS, Huntsville, August 6, 1862.

Major SIDELL, Headquarters, Nashville:

Captain Morton, Engineers, is ordered to select sites and lay out works for defense of Nashville.

Direct Colonel Miller to see that the works are pushed with all possible dispatch. Tell him to call in regular from upon slave-owners for hands to work, and put as many on the works as can be employed.

JAMES B. FRY,
Chief of Staff.

HEADQUARTERS, Huntsville, August 6, 1862.

General WILLIAM S. SMITH, Tullahoma:

General Mitchel reports that slaves here to whom he promised protection for valuable information have been returned to their masters. Do you know of any slaves to whom protection was promised; if so, was the protection claimed by the slaves or any persons in their behalf; and, if so claimed, was it refused? Answer these questions specifically.

JAMES B. FRY,

Chief of Staff.

TULLAHOMA, August 6, 1862.

Colonel J. B. FRY:

There was one slave for whom protection was claimed, I think, by Captain Slocum, quartermaster, and another who brought information and was put on duty, I believe, as a train hand. Neither of them were given up to my knowledge. These were all the cases that came to my knowledge. My instructions from General Buell strictly forbade my giving up slaves who had brought in intelligence and thus rendered themselves liable to punishment from their masters, and in no case, to my knowledge, were they so given up.

W. S. SMITH,

General.

HEADQUARTERS, Huntsville, August 6, 1862.

General THOMAS, Decherd:

What was Mr. Coleman arrested for by Colonel Shepherd? If on the supposition that he is a rebel officer have him released, as it is not true.