WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Richmond, Va., December 7, 1864.

General HARDEE, Savannah:

Transmit by the most rapid means the following dispatch to General E. Kirby Smith:

General E. KIRBY SMITH, Shreveport:

If practicable cross troops to aid General Hooker or divert forces from operating against him in Tennessee. If crossing be impracticable, can you not make some diversion to withdraw troops of the enemy to the Trans-Mississippi? We have intelligence that Steele, with 15,000 men, had reached Memphis and was proceeding to aid Thomas, commanding the enemy's operations against Hood. The campaign in the Trans-Mississippi has ceased or been abandoned. While the enemy concentrate east of the river the co-operation of your forces should in some form avail us.

J. A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

RICHMOND, VA., December 24, 1864.

General E. KIRBY SMITH,

Commanding Trans-Mississippi Department:

GENERAL: Your letter of August 21 has been received, and also copies of your correspondence with General R. Taylor relative to crossing the Mississippi River with troops, and copies of telegrams received from officers on this side the Mississippi in regard to it. I stated to you in a telegram of August 8 that no record was to be found in my office or that of the Bureau of Orders and Correspondence of a dispatch ordering the crossing of General Taylor's infantry, though you had been called on to follow the enemy's movements as far as practicable. General Bragg being at Columbus, Ga., and aware of my views of the importance of re-enforcements from the Tans-Mississippi Department, and authorized by me to make such arrangements as the exigency of the case might require, sent a telegram to cross the infantry designated, and if practicable some others. Had your telegram of July 30 adverted to the channel of its communication it would have apprised me of the order having been issued by virtue of a general authority with which I had invested General Bragg; but neither the telegram nor your letter of August 21, replying to my telegram of August 8, afforded a clue to the fact. It was, therefore, only on subsequent investigation that the manner in which you received the order was discovered. It is to be regretted that the withdrawal of so large a portion of the army of the enemy, heretofore employed in the Trans-Mississippi Department, and their concentration against our forces on this side of the Mississippi River with such unfortunate results to us, was not either promptly met by the forwarding of re-enforcements from you, or that in the Trans-Mississippi Department such vigorous measures did not rapidly followed your victories in April as would have prevented the enemy from sending troops to re-enforce his armies elsewhere, and perhaps would have created an effectual diversion.

The events of last summer and fall are known to you. The inadequacy of the part of our forces on the east side of the Mississippi to contend with those of the enemy as now again concentrated you cannot fail to have realized, and it is hoped that you will spare no efforts to afford assistance where it is so much needed for the maintenance of the common defense. Your various promotions and assignments to high and responsible duties furnish the best evidence of my confidence in