General Drayton's brigade. You are hereby required to use all dispatch in sending for and procuring your transportation. The brigade commanders will draw and carry with them ten days' rations from the chief commissary. Brigade, ordnance, quartermaster, and commissary trains will march in rear of their respective brigades.

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By order of Brigadier-General Drayton:

L. A. MACLEAN,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DIST. TEX., N. MEX., AND ARIZ., No. 78. Houston, March 18, 1864.

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V. Brigadier General William Steele is hereby assigned to the command of the Defenses of Galveston. Colonel A. T. Rainey will turn over to Brigadier-General Steele all papers, documents, &c., appertaining to his command.

By command of Major-General Magruder:

EDMUND P. TURNER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION,

Camp on Lavaca, March 18, 1864.

Brigadier General J. E. SLAUGHTER,

Chief of Staff, Hdqrs. Dist of Texas, &c., Houston:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that the U. S. forces evacuated Indianola on the 15th instant, and, as the citizens report, have gone to Saluria. My picket scouts on yesterday morning, finding no pickets this side of Powder Horn, continued to move in cautiously until they found the place abandoned, with every indication that it is not the intention of the enemy to reoccupy it. Strange to say, none of the citizens notified us to the departure of the enemy until their absence was discovered as reported.

I have the honor to be, general, your obedient servant,

JAMES DUFF,

Colonel, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS LOCAL DEFENSE COMPANY,
Lamar, Refugio County, March 18, 1864.

Colonel JAMES DUFF,

Commanding Forces of the West:

COLONEL: I have the honor to report all quiet within my line of duty. On the 17th instant a steamer appeared off Arkansas Bar; there being too little water to cross, she steamed off in the direction of Saluria. On the 13th instant I received information from Hines Bay of the mysterious disappearance of a gentleman representing himself to be a Confederate officer, an engineer, and member of General Magruder's military family. I visited Hines Bay on the 14th instant in person and conferred with Mr. Adams, an old resident of