and pile cargo, bales of hay, sacks of grain or of earth around the pilot-houses, loop-holed with grain or sand bags, to protect the pilots. None should move without convoy. Give such orders to your quartermasters, who forward supplies, and they will be carried out. Possibly five-eighths inch iron enough may be found to protect the upper part of the pilot-houses, but the other plan is cheaper, quicker, quite as efficient, and is believed to be all that is necessary. Transports cannot contend with such forces as Forrest leads. Gunboats alone can carry them through safely. Are any horses left in the country for Forrest to seize?

M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General.

QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., January 19, 1863.

Colonel ROBERT ALLEN,

Chief Quartermaster, Saint Louis, Mo.:

Captain W. JENKINS,

Assistant Quartermaster, in Charge Louisville Depot, Ky.:

It is hardly necessary to say to you that all transports with supplies by the Cumberland ought to have their boilers and machinery well protected with coal and their pilot-houses bullet-proof. Bales of hay, sacks of grain or earth, will protect the pilots, if properly placed. There are sixteen light-draught armored gunboats turned over by the Quartermaster's Department to the Navy, or purchased and fitted up by the Navy, suited to convoy transport fleets up the Cumberland. Call upon the naval commander at Cairo for convoy, and forbid transports going into the Cumberland unprotected.

M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General.

MURFREESBOROUGH, January 19, 1863.

Captain PENNOCK:

Telegraphed you last evening. It is very desirable that a couple of good gunboats should go up the Cumberland and destroy means of crossing as high up as Somerset. How soon can it be done? The Tennessee is navigable to Florence. Please let me know as soon as possible, it being desirable, in view of movements of troops,

W. S. ROSECRANS,

Major-General.

MURFREESBOROUGH, January 10, 1863.

Brigadier-General MITCHELL,

Commanding Post, Nashville:

It is not safe to rely upon any garrison for the defense of Fort Negley that is not constantly posted and habitually lodged within its walls. It will not answer to camp the garrison anywhere outside the fort, no matter how close to it. Four companies, at least, of infantry, and the artillerymen belonging to the guns will be required to be posted within the fort in the manner above defined.

W. S. ROSECRANS,

Major-General.