troops at this place and Vicksburg, with a few small detachments guarding wood-yards and refugee camps along the river, amounting in the aggregate for duty only about 8,000. The commanders of the two military districts composing this department are zealous and efficient officers, who, in my judgment, are fully competent to perform all the duties devolving upon them without the immediate presence of a department commander, especially at this time when there are no organized forces of the enemy in the vicinity of the river. In view of these circumstances, if the two districts were merged into other departments, placing that of Natchez into the Department of the Gulf and the District of Vicksburg into the Department of the Cumberland, it would obviate the necessity of keeping up a very large and expensive staff organization at department headquarters and return a number of line officers to their appropriate commands, where their services are much needed. Major-General Dana, the department commander, had upon his staff at the date of my inspection (March 22, 1865) two colonels, two majors, one surgeon, eight captains, and seven lieutenants. At the same time he had an escort of two commissioned officers and eighty men of the Second Wisconsin Cavalry Volunteers, with five wagons and an ambulance, besides twenty-nine soldiers detailed as clerks and printers, who received each, in addition to their pay proper, 40 cents per day (extra pay), and $8 per month from the provost-marshal's fund. From December 16, 1864, to February 28, 1865, the amount paid out of the provost-marshal's fund for gas, clerk hire, printing, books, &c., at the department headquarters offices was $4,529. 80. From the foregoing facts it will be seen that the expense to the United States of sustaining the headquarters of this department as at present organized, including pay of officers and men, subsistence, quarters, fuel, &c., with the cost and forage of animals, will not amount to less than $150,000 per annum. General Dana has upon his staff several very efficient officers who supervise thoroughly the different staff bureaus of the department, but as the number of troops is so small at the present time the line officers could, in my judgment, do better service with their regiments than in the positions they now occupy.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. B. MARCY,

Colonel and Inspector-General.

CAIRO, ILL., April 3, 1865.

Captain J. McC. BELL,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Division Headquarters:

Will be in Saint Louis about 6 o'clock to-morrow evening. Send my carriage to the river about 5 o'clock, with orders to wait until 9 o'clock for our boat, the C. E. Hillman.

JOHN. POPE,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, Saint Louis, April 3, 1865-3. 45 p. m.

Brigadier-General McCALLUM,

Superintendent of Military Railroads, Washington, D. C.:

The late freshet washed out nine bridges on Iron Mountain Railroad and did immense damage to road bed. The company have notified me that they are unable to replace the bridges. It is important that we