Brigadier-General Slaughter will leave to-day for Houston. He is well posted on all matters here, and will personally explain to the general commanding.

With great respect,

H. P. BEE,

Brigadier-General.

Captain EDMUND P. TURNER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

NOVEMBER 9, 1863.-Skirmish near Bayou Sara, La.

Report of Colonel Henry Maury, Fifteenth Confederate Cavalry,

MOBILE, ALA., November 12, 1863.

The following dispatch from Tunica, Miss., was received yesterday dated 10th instant, from Colonel Henry Maury, Fifteenth [Confederate] Cavalry Regiment:

We dashed in yesterday above Bayou Sara on a plundering party of Yankees, 300 strong; drove them to their iron-clads, with great slaughter. We brought off their wagon train and 25 prisoners from under the broadsides of their gunboats. Only 3 wounded of ours.

DABNEY H. MAURY,

Major-General.

General S. COOPER.

NOVEMBER 15-18, 1863.-Expedition from Vidalia to Trinity, La.

Report of Colonel Bernard G. Farrar, Thirtieth Missouri Infantry.

POST OF VIDALIA, LA., November 18, 1863.

CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report the details of the expedition, made in obedience to your orders, into the enemy's lines on the west side of the Mississippi River.

Having obtained 18 mounted men and a single raft from Captain Lochbihler's Missouri company of pontoniers, in addition to 98 mounted men of the Thirtieth Missouri Volunteer Infantry and 14 mounted sergeants of the Second Mississippi (African descent) Volunteer Artillery, I started out from Vidalia at 3.30 o'clock on the 15th day of November, my whole force amounting to 8 officers and 140 enlisted men.

We crossed Cross Bayou on the Trinity road, and marched on that road to within 5 miles of Trinity. We then turned south on a plantation road, and kept such roads until we arrived at the banks of Black River, about 2 1/2 miles below Trinity.

Here I ordered the horses and mules to be picketed, and left the pontoniers as guard over the same. In about a half hour the pontoon raft was placed in the river, and we commenced to cross afoot. At 4 o'clock an aggregate of 75 men had crossed, and the remainder of the men were missing, having either left to get fodder for their animals or shirked their duty at a time when they could not be hunted up. It being already 4 o'clock, and the object of the expedition (the capture of the