Bluffs. Small detachments of rebel troops guard all the crossings of the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers. From all information, re-enforcements from Hood's army and from other points are entering Mobile. General Maury, in that country, is reported to have with his command from 15,000 to 20,000 men. Two brigades of Forrest's cavalry and Colonel Maury's old cavalry brigade infest the section west of Mobile to Pearl River. Several independent companies are operating in same country. Forrest is at Jackson, Miss., and is about to take charge of the cavalry, Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. Between the New Orleans and Jackson Railroad and the Mississippi River there are two Arkansas regiments, two Mississippi Regiments, and two Louisiana battalions, and Thompson's, Bedoe's, Carter's and other isolated commands. Water-courses all full. Troops obtain supplies only with great difficulty and by railroad or navigable streams. They find it difficult to make movements except by the same means. People are anxious to be included within the Federal lines.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. M. EATON,

Captain and Chief Signal Officer, Mil. Div. of West Mississippi.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,
New Orleans, La., February 21, 1865.

Major General E. R. S. CANBY,

Commanding, &c.:

GENERAL: It is with much pain that I make the following statement: On the afternoon of the 3rd instant I was handed two messages, one for Major-General Washburn, Vicksburg, which was required to be "placed in cipher" with more than usual has, and read thus: "The commanding officer of the cavalry force now on the way from Major-General Thomas, &c. "

In placing the foregoing in cipher, I inadvertently omitted the word "cavalry," which, combined with circumstances, has made it a most grievous error.

In dispatches of this description two-thirds of the words are blind; a word or part of a word, a phrase or a whole sentence being represented by a single, meaningless, and variable cipher, rendering it so intricate that even experts cannot read the dispatch without a key.

It was through this intricacy that I failed to detect the omission of the cipher word for "cavalry", my eye not discovering the error as I hastily reviewed the dispatch before placing it in a prescribed columnar form for transmission.

Errors are a source of mortifications if only trifling, but the thought that this one has resulted as it has is crushing in the extreme. I do not wish to excuse it in the least. My only hope is that in this or whatever position I may be placed in the future to be able, by care and faithfulness, to efface in a slight measure the remembrance of this unfortunate circumstance.

I remain, general, your humble servant,

ISRAEL A. SHERMAN,

Cipher Clerk.