GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF ARKANSAS, &C., Numbers 23.
Little Rock, Ark., May 9, 1864.

To you, the troops of the Seventh Army Corps, who participated in the recent campaign designed to co-operate with General Banks' movement against Shreveport, the major-general commanding tenders his earnest and grateful thanks. Although you were compelled to fall back without seeing the main object of the expedition accomplished, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have beaten the enemy wherever he has met you in force, and extricated yourselves from the perilous position in which you were placed by the reverses of the co-operating column. This let loose upon you a superior force of the enemy, under one of their best generals, causing the loss of your trains, a total interruption of your communications, and rendering it impossible for you to obtain supplies. You have fallen back over rivers and swamps while pressed by a superior force of the enemy, and this you have done successfully, punishing the enemy severely at the same time. The patience with which you have endured hardships and privations, and your heroic conduct on the battle-field, have been brought to the notice of the Government, and will furnish a page in the history of this was of which you may well be pound.

F. STEELE,

Major-General, Commanding.

Numbers 3. Report of Captain Junius B. Wheeler, U. S. Corps of Engineers, Chief Engineer.

LITTLE ROCK, ARK., May 5, 1864.

MAJOR: In compliance with paragraph 490, Revised Regulations (1863), and by request of Major-General Steele, commanding the Department of Arkansas, I have the honor to submit the following report: In obedience to orders of Major General F. Steele, the troops commenced to move from this place on the 23rd day of March, 1864, on what is known as the military road leading to Benton and Rockport. The bridge train, consisting of thirty-four wagons, with two companies of the Twenty-fourth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, under command of Captain S. P. Barris, the senior officer present, acting as pensioners, moved out on that day at the head of the general supply train. The battalion being small in numbers, at my request General Steele re-enforced them by a detail of 100 men from what was then known as the Fourth Arkansas, African descent. These men were recruits for one of the colored regiments, and were unarmed. Spades, shovels, picks, and axes were distributed among them, and they were usefully employed on the march in repairing the road, helping the brigade train through bad places, and useful as pensioners whenever the bridge was laid. The advance of the column encamped on the Saline river, 26 miles from Little Rock, on the 24th. It had rained on the 24th, and we found the road soft in the Saline bottom, which became badly cut up before the trains was all over on the 25th. It became necessary to corduroy a portion of it in order to get the whole train over. Upon leaving the bottom we