I have subsistence for my command sufficient to last until the 5th of January. The train sent to the wreck of the steamer Doane has been delayed by high water and the bad roads, so that it will not reach here before to-morrow night. I learn that it is loaded entirely with forage. I had expected it would be loaded in part with subsistence, but it seems that the Doane was loaded entirely with forage. In this I am disappointed. My train, which is expected from Fort Scott, was to have started on the 13th, but by late information I learn that it had not started on the 19th instant, but would do so in a day or two. I had expected to receive fifteen days' subsistence by that train, the arrival of which I am compelled to await, owing to the fact that there is a portion of one regiment with it and two regiments have been sent up to meet it.

I want subsistence sent up by boats as soon as possible, as follows: 120,000 ponds of hard bread, 9,600 pounds of coffee, 18,000 pounds of sugar, 5,000 pounds of salt. I have a sufficient amount of meat.

These stores can be sent up by boats, and even though the boats cannot reach higher than Moore's Rocks (Twenty miles below Van Buren), or even Clarksville, I can supply myself from them with my train. Either of the boats can reach Clarksville without any doubt on this water, and can probably reach Moore's Rocks. By receiving the subsistence asked for in this I can let the Indian brigade have the stores from the Fort Scott train, and thereby leave those troops well supplied. Otherwise that brigade will be much in want before supplies can reach Gibson; besides of I do not received commissaries from Little Rock I will be without rations for at least five days before the Fort Scott train reaches me. I shall move some troops to Clarksville immediately, so that if boats can get no higher up the stores can be protected.

Respectfully,

JOHN M. THAYER,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

SPECIAL DISTRICT,
HDQRS. DISTRICT OF THE FRONTIER, Numbers 224.
Fort Smith, Ark., December 26, 1864.

* * * * * *

VII. Paragraph II, Special Orders, Numbers 214, from these headquarters, is hereby revoked, and the First Arkansas Cavalry will continue with the Third Brigade.

VIII. Colonel W. R. Judson, commanding the Third Brigade, will move with the Second, Sixth, and Fourteenth Kansas Cavalry Regiments to Clarksville, Ark., starting from Fort Smith on the 28th instant.

By command of Brigadier General J. M. Thayer:

T. J. ANDERSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, RESERVE CORPS, MILITARY DIVISION, OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,
Memphis, Tenn., December 26, 1864.

Colonel S. T. BUSEY,

Commanding Seventy-sixth Illinois Infantry:

COLONEL: You will, in compliance with instructions from Major-General Dana, please send out 250 men, in charge of a competent