HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF ARKANSAS,
January 2, 1865.

Brigadier General A. Shaler,

Commanding, Devall's Bluff;

You can visit Little Rock and confer with General West here this p. m. He will be notified of your coming.

By order of Major General J. J. Reynolds:

JOHN LEVERING,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

LEWISBURG, January 2, 1865.

Captain J. H. PRATT,

Assistant Quartermaster, Little Rock:

Reliable information a force of 350 men with one small piece of artillery. General Thayer has two colored regiments coming down on the south side of the River.

HENRY WOOD.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF MISSISSIPPI,
Memphis, Tenn., January 2, 1865.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Headquarters Military

Division of West Mississippi, New Orleans, La. .

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith, for the information of the major-general commanding division, a telegram* from Major General George H. Thomas, commanding Department of the Cumberland and temporarily commanding the Military Division of the Mississippi. I presume General Thomas refers particularly to Colonel Karge's cavalry brigade, which I found under orders when I arrived at Memphis, from his chief of cavalry, to proceed to Nashville, and which I detained, together with the detachments of the Third and Fourth Iowa and Tenth Missouri Cavalry, to enable me to comply with the orders of Major-General Halleck, chief of staff, to cut the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. I request that the two infantry divisions under command of Major General A. J. Smith, formerly the First and Second Divisions (Right Wing), Sixteenth Army Corps, now at or near Nashville, may be returned to this command, to give me a small movable force. These troops were under your orders to join me from Missouri, when they were temporarily diverted to re-enforce the Army of the Cumberland.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

N. J. T. DANA,

Major-General.

[Indorsement.]

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,
New Orleans, January 7, 1865.

Respectfully forwarded.

General Thomas' telegram, in terms, embraces all the troops on the east bank of the River above Port Hudson, except three regiments. The infantry cannot be replaced by any troops under the control. The cavalry can be replaced, and I have already ordered two regiments from the Department of the Gulf to report to General Dana, and will make up the deficiency from the Department of Arkansas. The troops

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* See Vol. XLV, Part II, p. 341.

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