HEADQUARTERS NORTHERN DIVISION OF LOUISIANA,
Baton Rouge, La., March 2, 1865.

Lieutenant Colonel GEORGE B. DRAKE,

Asst. Adjt. General, Dept. of the Gulf, New Orleans, La.:

COLONEL: The Seventy-third and Seventy-fifth Regiments that were at first ordered from Morganza have gone down. I intended substituting the Eighty-fourth for the Seventy-fifth, but the latter had been moved before the order reached Morganza.

F. J. HERRON,

Major-General.

PORT HUDSON, March 2, 1865.

Captain W. H. CLAPP:

I have received a dispatch from Major Mitchell, commanding cavalry. He found Major-General Bailey at White's Bayou. Says they will not reach Redwood before to-morrow night. All the bridges are destroyed, and Bailey is delayed in building them.

CYRUS HAMLIN,

Brigadier-General.

BRAZOS SANTIAGO, March 2, 1865.

Major-General HURLBUT,

Commanding Department of the Gulf:

GENERAL: I returned to this post last night from Matamoras. Everything appears quiet at that place, at least to a stranger. At Brownsville the rebels are probably 400 strong. They are moving their stores of every description to Corpus Christi and preparing to leave for that place. They don't intend to try to hold Brownsville much longer, and if our forces were ordered to occupy that place I don't think they would meet with any opposition. I have learned from reliable sources that the militia of the State has been ordered to the coast at different points from Corpus Christi east. Breadstuffs and beef were never more abundant than at present. On account of heavy rains in Western Texas the roads have been very heavy lately. The rebels have been sending large droves of beef-cattle into Mexico lately and getting out mules in return. The rebels in Matamoras have had quite a time over the dismissal of Consul Etchison, and the honor of our country would not have suffered much if he had never been appointed. In leaving Matamoras it seems he delivered the books and records of the consulate to a man named McAllen, who on the arrival of the present commercial agent, Mr. Wood, refused to deliver up the same to him, and a week later he saw fit to deliver them, and all the leaves had been cut out from the time of Mr. Pierce's turning over the office to Mr. Etchison. With regard to matters on the Mexican side of the river, everything is set to take Matamoras as soon as our forces occupy Brownsville, and it is safe to say that in a month after the occupation of Brownsville by our troops all of the country east of the Sierra Madre will be occupied by the Liberals. Cortina is still in the service of the Empire, but recruiting fast, and when the arrives will be found in the right place.

M. DOLAN,