RICHMOND, VA., November 16, 1862.

General BRAGG:

Your telegram just received. Send General Mackall to Mobile. General Leadbetter is there as chief engineer.

S. COOPER.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE,

No. 21.
Murfreesborough, November 16, 1862.

* * * * * *

X. Information having received these headquarters that bands of partisan rangers, claiming authority from the War Department, are impressing horses and committing depredations throughout the country, the attention of all cavalry organization is called to the following special order from Headquarters Department No. 2:

I. All organizations and bodies of troops in Middle Tennessee are hereby placed under the command of Major-General Breckinridge, to whom they will immediately report for orders. Parties acting without this authority will be at once arrested, and the full punishment provided by law awarded to them.

By command of Major-General Breckinridge:

JOHN A. BUCKNER,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.

RICHMOND, November 17, 1862.

General HUMPHREY MARSHALL,

Abindgon, Va.:

GENERAL: In reply to your communication of 5th instant, I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you that the Department did not mean to be understood as depriving you of any right to which you are entitled under the regulations of the army, but simply to indicate that the union of the forces would not merge them permanently, but that each would certain its distinct organization, you, of course, to directed the combined operations.

Very respectfully,&c.,

JASPER W. WHITING,

Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF EAST TENNESSEE, Knoxville, November 17, 1862.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond, Va.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to call your attention to the fourth paragraph, second section, of the act to establish rendezvous for conscripts,&c., and the peculiar condition of this department. Owing to the disloyalty of the citizens, the conscript act cannot be enforced without the use of the troops under my command. I have daily reports of many outrages arising from the manner of enforcing the act, and Lieutenant-General Blake, the commandant of conscripts, has to require of me constant