since the organization of our Government. At this time particularly, when the Sioux are deemed to be under military surveillance, they should be made to understand that all regulations regarding them will be strictly enforced. The Government at great expense located those Indians on the Missouri, with the understanding on the part of Minnesota that no Sioux should be located again within her limits. Yet we find several hunting and trapping near the old Yellow Medicine Agency, and quite a number of families, I learn, are at the scouts' camp, on the Redwood, while a still greater number are located along the Sioux City. As soon as the present storm has subsisted I propose to send a party of scouts as far down the Sioux River as Lake Poinsett, to order the Indians that may be found along the Sioux River, and those that may be hunting near the edge of the Coteau, to move forthwith to the west side of the James River, and should they refuse to obey more stringent measures will have to be resorted to.

J. R. BROWN,

Major and Special Military Agent.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SIGNAL OFFICER,
New Orleans, La., December 22, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

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

SIR: I have the honor to submit to your consideration a statement of the information received at this office this 22nd day of December, 1864, from the following source, the statement of Oscar M. Jackson, scout, who left Mobile on the 16th instant:

Around Mobile on the west side from the bay to Alabama River are three lines of defense. The two outer lines are simply breast-works; the inner lines consist of fourteen forts and redoubts, of which the two next the bay below the city are the strongest. Interval from one line of works to the next is about 600 yards. In the bay, forming prolongation of the inner line, are Batteries Gregg and Gladden. The channel between Gregg and the shore is planted with torpedoes. The deeper channel between Gregg and Gladden is free at present. The obstructions have been completed and no ingress or egress permitted. There are from 5,000 to 6,000 troops in the city, of whom more than half are militia. The regulars are: First Georgia Infantry, 175 men; Twenty-second Louisiana Artillery, acting infantry, number unknown; Twenty-first Alabama Infantry, large regiment, number unknown; Seventeenth Alabama Infantry, number unknown. The militia are: State Reserves, number unknown; British Guards, number unknown; Spanish Guards, numbers unknown; Pelham Cadets, number unknown; Brooks' cavalry, one company, scout below the city. Major General Dabney H. Maury is commanding. Colonel Thomas H. Taylor, commands the post. McCulloch's brigade of cavalry, of Forrest's command and the Fifteenth Confederate Cavalry, Colonel Maury, started about the 10th toward Pollard to meet reported advance of Federal forces from that point. This force conformed and harassed General Davidson near Citronelle; numbers estimated between 3,000 and 4,000. Troops are poorly clad, scantily fed, and in the case of militia and conscripts highly disaffected. General Beauregard has not lately been in Mobile. Lucien Adams is there in high favor. Three months since