No one doubted that General Buell would eventually have succeeded, but he was too slow to be in time. It was believed that you would move more rapidly. Hence the change.

Yours, truly,

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, December 5, 1862.

Major-General ROSECRANS,

Nashville, Tenn.:

The Secretary of War has received your telegram to J. A. Gurley, asking that Beekman and 40 other paymasters be sent to your department. I am directed to call your attention to the unmilitary character of such proceedings on your part. The Secretary of War is the judge of how many paymasters should be appointed to your department, and your communications on official business should not be sent through members of Congress or other Departments of the Government. This is not the first time I have been directed to call your attention to similar improprieties.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

NASHVILLE, TENN.

December 5, 1862-5 p.m.

Major-General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

I regret that my private and unofficial dispatches though few, and never without a view to the good of the service, should be regarded by the War Department as matters for official animadversion. Such has been the case in both instances to which your dispatch alludes. The detail of paymasters to accompany troops in the field will remedy a host of evils of the first magnitude, and would be a measure worthy of your administration.

W. S. ROSECRANS,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND,

Nashville, December 5, 1862

Brigadier General JOSEPH J. REYNOLDS, Nashville, Tenn.:

GENERAL: You will proceed to Carthage, Tenn. and assume command of the forces ordered to that point, consisting of four regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery, under Colonel A. S. Hall, who left Glasgow, Ky., with his command to-day, and of the regiment of Tennessee cavalry, commanded by Colonel Stokes, now in this city, which last will be directed to report to you at Gallatin.

You first care on arriving at Carthage will be to select ground for a small field-work, which shall command the landing and the town, considered as a depot, and enable you with one regiment to hold the town and crossed the river at will, either for offensive or defensive purposes. These would be best subserved by placing it, if you can do so advantageously,on the south side of the river, and sufficiently near to the