regiment of troops at Shreveport on the 4th instant, commanded by Colonel W. R. Shivers. No troops were seen on the route between Shreveport and Milliken's Bend.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

FRANK W. MARSTON,

Major, Signal Corps, U. S. Army, Commanding.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. MIL. DIV. OF WEST MISSISSIPPI, Numbers 168.
New Orleans, La., October 25, 1864.

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5. Companies A and B, Sixty-fourth U. S. Colored Infantry (the former, according to last returns received at these headquarters, serving at Pine Bluff, Ark., and the latter at Helena, Ark.), are hereby relieved from duty in the Department of Arkansas, and will without delay join the main portion of the regiment at Davis' Bend, Miss. The quartermaster's department will furnish the necessary transportation.

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By order of Major General E. R. S. Canby:

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

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,

New Orleans, October 25, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

It is proper that I should state, for the information of the major-general commanding the division, some outline of the state in which I found this department on assuming command. The offices of the adjutant-general, quartermaster, and commissaries I found conducted in good order and according to regulations except so far as they had been interfered with by special orders from department headquarters. Several special funds have from time to time been created and laced in charge of the quartermaster's department. Principal among these are the hospital fund, the sequestration fund, and the Corps d'Afrique fund. The hospital fund seems to have been generally wisely administered, and the only items that seem excessive are two, in the aggregate $50,000, paid to the city for cleaning streets. The sequestration fund, accumulated by seizures and sales of property, whether justly or not it is impossible to state, will, in my judgment, be swallowed up by reclamations ordered from Washington. The Corps d'Afrique fund accumulated by sales of cotton found near Port Hudson has carried the burden of all sorts of expenditures. The board of education and the schools established under it and the bureau of freedman have been supported by this fund. There are no records whatsoever to be found of the receipts and disbursements of the provost-marshal-general's office before were inflicted and large sales made, but nothing appears on any records remaining. The provost court, administered by A. A. Atocha, can furnish no accounts of receipts and disbursements, although the examination now pending will charge that officer with large amounts of