infamous folly of a disloyal, wild, and wicked population that harbored and helped bushwhackers in the broken, tangled woodlands south of your important position.

They were the worst foes to you and to Missouri, as they are a disgrace to the world, and your lines of commerce through my department and your happiness and prosperity at home must hereafter, as before, depend much on the efforts of yourselves and your loyal neighbors in aiding the troops on both sides of department lines in giving timely notice and material aid when even a sign of such foes shall appear in any portion of our common country. Knowing your loyal devotion to our cause, and confiding in your generous sympathy toward the loyal people of this department, I confidently assure you of a cordial co-operation by the troops and people of my command to secure to you and to ourselves all possible security, and finally to suppress the ravages of this ungodly rebellion, and restore peace, prosperity, and happiness to our whole country.

Assuring you personally of my anxious and devoted efforts to protect your commercial interests in and out of my command, I remain, gentleman, your very obedient and humble servant,

S. R. CURTIS,

Major-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. ON THE NORTHWEST, No. 8. Milwaukee, Wis., March 4, 1864.

The Military District of Minnesota is hereby extended to include all the territory east of a line drawn from the head of Pembina River to the western extremity of Devil's Lake; thence to the head of James River; thence following the course of James River southerly to the forty-fourth parallel of latitude; these east along that parallel to the Big Sioux River; thence along the line of that river to the northern boundary of the State of Iowa.

By command of Major-General Pope:

J. F. MELINE,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, March 5, 1864.

Major General N. P. BANKS,

New Orleans:

GENERAL: Your dispatch of February 25 is just received. I have no official information of the plans or movements of Generals Sherman and Steele later than that received through you. Some newspaper accounts state that General Sherman had penetrated to Selma, and others that he was moving on Mobile. But neither of these statements seem reliable. As I understood General Sherman's plan, after reaching Meridian, he was either to return to Vicksburg or to act further against the enemy, as the circumstances of the case might seem to justify. A movement on Mobile was a possible contingency, but no part of any definite plan. It was further understood that Admiral Farragut's movement on Mobile, like that of General Thomas on Dalton, was simply a demonstration to draw a portion of the enemy from Sherman's front. No detachment of