Second Cavalry, returned on the 29th of August, after a five days' scout with eleven scouts under Gabriel Renville. I also forward his report.* The scouts and cavalry have been kept busy scouting while the infantry have been kept busy doing guard duty and working on buildings. The block-houses are completed one story high. They are built with hewn oak timber seven by eight and nine inches, firmly put together. I intend to plank them on the outside with oak plank one and a half inches thick as soon as possible. I thought it would be best to secure quarters and other buildings before putting the second story on the block-houses. Captain McKusick, assistant quartermaster, is pushing all the work, and with the time necessary to get the tools in working order and to become acquainted with the men best suited for the different parts of the work, he has certainly done well for the time engaged. The timber is hewn for the magazine and will laid up this week. The large quartermaster and commissary building will be put up of oak timber, sawed six by eight inches. It will have a good stone foundation with a cellar eight feet deep, twenty-two feet wide, and forty-three feet long. It will be ready for timber by the last of the week, and will be ready for use in a very short time. The saw-mill is doing well, although it took some time to get it properly started. A blacksmithshop has been put up, and a small building for headquarters will be completed to-morrow.

Lieutenant Phillips, Company I (cavalry), left here this morning with orders to report to Captain Bonham, at Fort Ridgely, or en route to or from there.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN CLOWNEY,

Major Thirtieth Regiment Wisconsin Infty. Vols., Commanding

SPECIAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 290.
Washington, September 2, 1864.

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48. Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Thurston, assistant inspector-general of the Sixteenth Army Corps, is hereby relieved from duty with that corps, and will report in person without delay to Major-General Canby, U. S. Volunteers, commanding Military Division of West Mississippi, for assignment to duty with Major-General Hurlbut, U. S. Volunteers.

* * * * * * *

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,

New Orleans, La., September 2, 1864.

Major-General CANBY:

I have just received your telegram, through General Lawler, and will order Captain Wilson, of the Ouachita, now lying at Baton Rouge, to convoy all vessels you may send up. The vessel carries forty guns. On arrival here will order Captain Wilson to return to Baton Rouge to

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* See Part II, p. 949.

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