FEBRUARY 8-13, 1865. - Scout from Helena to Madison, Ark., with skirmish (12th) near Madison.

REPORTS.

Numbers 1. - Brigadier General Napoleon B. Buford, U. S. Army, commanding District of Eastern Arkansas.

Numbers 2. - Lieutenant Colonel John M. Crebs, Eighty-seventh Illinois Infantry.

Numbers 1. Report of Brigadier General Napoleon B. Buford, U. S. Army, commanding District of Eastern Arkansas. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF EASTERN ARKANSAS, Helena, Ark., February 15, 1865.

SIR: For the information of General Reynolds I have the honor to report that on the 8th instant I send a scout of 175 men, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Crebs, of the Eighty-seventh Illinois Mounted Infantry, which proceeded in northwesterly direction, to Moro, then crossing Bayou De View into the settlement called the "Colony," where at Vaughn's he found Dobbin's headquarters, but the troops dispersed. He destroyed between 2,000 and 3,000 bushels of corn which had been collected there. He also subsisted his men upon the bacon found there, and it being impossible to bring it off, he destroyed Dobbin's headquarters transportation. In the "Colony" he made captures of several soldiers. He marched thence to Madison, on the Saint Francis River, where I had sent two armed boats to meet him and convey his troops back to this place, meeting on the march squads of the enemy with whom he skirmished, killing 2 and wounding several others, with the loss of 1 man, whose horse being killed was taken prisoner. The command all returned to this place on the night of the 13th instant, having with them 20 prisoners of was and 18 horses and mules captured, having marched about 300 miles, swimming Caney Creek, Bayou De View, Second Creek, and L'Anguille River. I make the following extract from Lieutenant-Colonel Creb's report:

* * * From information received from citizens and soldiers captured, I feel authorized to say that the chief object of Lyles and Dobbin, who are personally at this time between Madison and Memphis, is to collect the rebel tax on cotton passing to Memphis, on obtain which it is forwarded to the city at once as cotton belonging to citizens, and from the proceeds of such sales supplies for the enemy - such as arms, ammunition, and clothing - are clandestinely brought through the lines for the use of the command, it being the intention in this way to procure an outfit for the command for the spring campaign. As one evidence of this will state that a Colt army revolver, captured in the skirmish on Sunday near Madison, was before that day unused, and the man upon whom it was captured admits he obtained it but a few days before from Memphis. * * *

From which it will be seen that Memphis supplies the rebels of the District of Eastern Arkansas, and this induces the large number of their disorganized troops to infest the country between White and the Mississippi Rivers.

N. B. BUFORD,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

Major JOHN LEVERING,

Assistant Adjutant-General.