HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF MISSISSIPPI,
Vicksburg, may 4, 1865.

Major General P. J. OSTERHAUS,

Chief of Staff:

In reply to your letter of the 1st instant I have to state that hostilities were resumed on this front on the 2nd instant. All my mounted force is operating in the vicinity of Port Gibson, and I have an infantry garrison at Rodney with a view of intercepting Jeff. Davis. Four hundred and fifty men of the Third U. S. Colored Cavalry have reported here from Memphis for temporary duty and I have sent them to General Davidson, at Natchez, to operate in the vicinity of Fort Adams and Tunica for the same purpose. There are three gun-boats at the mouth of the Yazoo, one at Big Black, and one at Bayou Pierre, and the river is also actively patrolled by the navy. The only mounted force belonging to this department is the Fourth Missouri Cavalry, which will be sent to New Orleans as soon as it returns from Port Gibson.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

N. J. T. DANA,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF MISSISSIPPI,
Vicksburg, Miss., May 4, 1865.

Brigadier General W. F. TUCKER, C. S. ARMY,

Commanding Department of Central Mississippi, Jackson, Miss.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 1st instant at the hands of Brigadier General George B. Hodge, C. S. Army, inclosing a telegram from Lieutenant-General Taylor, C. S. Army, dated Meridian, May 1, 1865, and announcing that an armistice was agreed upon between the latter and Major-General Canby, U. S. Army, on the 29th ultimo. In reply it becomes necessary to inform you that having received instructions from the War Department at Washington, D. C., to recognize or conclude no armistice, it is impracticable for me to acquiesce in any suspension of hostilities until official instructions shall have been received from Major-General Canby, which, up to the present time, have not arrived.

Very respectfully,

N. J. T. DANA,

Major-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS, HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NATCHEZ, Numbers 113.
Natchez, Miss., May 4, 1865.

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2. The post at Bullitt's Bayou, La., will at once be broken up, three companies of the Sixty-third U. S. Colored Infantry now serving there embarked under the superintendence of the senior officer present for Quitman's Landing, Miss., and the ordnance and ordnance stores turned over to the post ordnance at Natchez, Miss. The quartermaster's department will furnish the necessary transportation.

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By order of Brigadier General J. W. Davidson:

B. F. MOREY,
Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General.