your in inspector-general, who accompanied me in the inspection, condemned these carriages. Those in the water battery should be replaced by others or repaired by parts of other condemned carriages. I recommended that twenty of those on unserviceable carriages in the main work be selected in equal proportions from the several batteries, be at once replaced by siege guns and howitzers, and that the remainder be allowed to remain in position until the pieces are required elsewhere. The carriages would perhaps stand ten or fifteen rounds each, some of them possibly more.

Interior work of Fort Pickering: I recommended that the present armament of this work be increased by an addition of twelve siege mortars. These would be of great service in keeping the enemy out of the low grounds where shelter could be found from any but a curved fire, or in dislodging him from the parapet and ditch of the main work should he succeed in making a lodgment therein.

Ammunition: The supply of ammunition for all the artillery in position at Memphis is ample, and its condition apparently good. I would recommend hand grenades for the interior work of Fort Pickering, one to each lineal yard of parapet. The supply of ammunition for the armament of the five outworks, and the siege guns and howitzers which to replace the pieces mounted on unserviceable carriages, as indeed for the entire armament of the place, cannot be better regulated than in accordance with paragraph 18 of General Orders, Numbers 42, War Department, February 2, 1864, and the instructions for field artillery, except that the proportion of solid might with advantage be diminished one-fourth to one-half and other kinds of projectiles increased.

A copy of this letter will be furnished with my report to Major-General Canby.

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

Q. A. GILLMORE,

Major General and Insp. General of Fortifications, Mil. Div. of West Miss.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, December 14, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Asst. Adjt. General, Mil. Div. of West Miss., New Orleans, La.:

COLONEL: I have the honor to inform you that by direction of Major-General Halleck the Thirty-ninth, Forty-fifth, Forty-seventh, and Forty-eighth Regiment Missouri Infantry and Second Regiment Missouri Cavalry have been ordered to report to Major General George H. Thomas; also the battalion of the First Iowa Cavalry have been ordered to join their command and the Sixth Missouri Cavalry to join their regiment in compliance with former orders.

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

G. M. DODGE,

Major-General.

SAINT LOUIS, December 14, 1864.

Major General GEORGE H. THOMAS, Nashville, Tenn.:

We have been blocked here three days be ice. Hope to get over to-day, and have directed three regiments of infantry ordered to you to go to Paducah.

G. M. DODGE.