general commanding, and send the messenger back by return train if possible. I have some iportant private business to transact at Murfreesborough on the 11th instant, but I am fearful I shall not be able to do it and attend to my duty here. If I knew any waw to be relieved for few days in case I should not get through here before the 8th instant, I would like to have it done, but my assistants in Nashville cannot be spared from their posts any more than I can here, and the only way would be to let lsuch prisoners as might be on hand wait my return, and that would seem to be hard on the prisoners, as they will all be suffering and anozious to get to their homes; still I would like the permission to leave here on the 8th, to go to Murfreesborough and return on the 12th, in case I should not have finished my duties here before then, and should find that the interest of the service would not be jeopardized and our prisoners would not suffer by my doing so.

I inclose an advertisement of a sheriff's sale, which I feel quite anxious to attend.

In my interview with Forrest he said he thought Lee would have to get out of Richmond, and that he would move his army into Kentycky, and that he would march with 200,000 men into Illinois this summer.

The rebel authorities are enrolling the negroes in Mississippi preparatory to putting them into the service.

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

J. G. PARKHURST,

Colonel and Provost-Marshal-General.

P. S. - I inclose the latest rebel papers I could get. Forrest brought none up with him and none came up after he left.

J. G. P.

[Inclosure.]

HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND,
OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

Eastport, Miss., March 1, 1865.

Brigadier General W. D. WHIPPLE,

Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff:

I have the honor to report that, agreeably to orders from department headquarters, issued February 17, q865, I left Nasville on the morning of the 19th of February with despatches for Major-General Forrest, of the rebel Army, and reached Eastport, Miss., on the evening of the 20th of February. Owing to a delay in furnishing an escort I did not get away from Eastport until about 11 o'clock on the morning of the 21st. I was provided with an escort of twenty men and ten days' rations and forage. On reaching Burnsville I found that there were no rebel troops there and none at Corinth, and that there was neither railroad not telegraphic communication between Corinth and West Point, where General Forrest's headquarters are located.

I remained at Burnsville until the morning of the 22d, when I started for Rienzi; found no rebel troops until I reached a point about one mile from Jacinto, where there were five rebel scouts, but found no pickets, and saw nothing of any (rebel) troops until I reached Tuscumbia River, where there was a picket-post in charhge of Lieutenant Phipps, of the Tenth Tennessee (rebel) Cavalry. Lieutenant Phipps halted me and desired to know the object of the flag, and I informed him I was the bearer of dispatches to General Forrest and desired to communicate with him from Rienzi by telegraph; that I could not make known my business to him, and could communicate with General Forrest only from