was either appropriated to its use in kind by the proper officers of the commissary and quartermaster's departments, receipts being given therefor, or transmitted to the chief quartermaster at New Orleans, and by him turned over to the Treasury agents, to be disposed of according to the laws of Congress and the orders of the Government. Where cotton or other property interfered with the transportation of any material of the army, or of refugees, negroes, or troops, upon the evacuation of the country, it was thrown from the boats and abandoned upon the river levee to the enemy.

I intend this statement to be as comprehensive upon the subject as language can make it, and to cover all possible methods, direct or indirect, by which officers or citizens, public or private parties, or any persons whatever, could evade or violate these orders on the river or at New Orleans, or appropriate by any means public or private property to private uses or personal advantage, or to deprive the Government or individuals of any property which, by any interpretion of military orders or public laws, could be considered as belonging justly and properly to them. General Gover, commanding the post, Colonel S. B. Holabird, chief quartermaster at New Orleans, and Honorable B. F. Flanders, supervising special agent Treasury Department, will be able to account to the Government for public or private property coming into their hands during this campaign.

I was engaged upon the Gulf coast., hoping by the capture of Galveston and Mobile to put my command in readness for an effective co-operation, by Mobile and the Alabama River, with General Sherman, precisely in accordance with the campaign suggested by the lieutenant-general commanding the armies in his dispatches of the 15th and 31st of March, when I received instructions to communicate with the admiral and the general officer, commanding the fleet and forces of the upper Mississippi, upon the subject of the campaign against Shreveport. I immediately complied with these orders. They had received similar instructions, and in answer to my communications expressed their readiness and desire to enter upon the campaign. With the forces proposed and the co-operation of the fleet, its success was reasonably certain; under such circumstances I could not decline co-operation with them. I at once abandoned all other enterprises and gave my whole attention to this service. The first difficultly encountered was in the navigation of the river. Sixteen days' delay caused by the inability of the fleet to pass the rapids of Alexandria, and three days' delay at Grand Ecore in waiting the rise of the river, enabled the enemy to concentrate his forces and rendered impossible that celerity of movement by the army which the success of the expedition demanded. Eight days of the delay, at Alexandria would have been attributable to the tardy organization and movements of Franklin's command, but the fleet was unable to pass the falls until eight days after his arrival at Alexandria. This delay was doubtless owing to the impracticable navigation of the river; but it is not improper to say that the forecast and diligence which are enforced upon all men in the daily affairs of life would have forbidden an attempt to force a fleet of so much importance to the free navigation of the Mississippi to a point from which it could never hope to escape, except upon the theory that the river ought to or might rise.

The movement of the navy, in a dispatch of Rear-Admiral D. D. Porter, to which the Secretary of the Navy has given official publication and sanction, is attributed to the "request" of General Banks,