HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF KANSAS, Fort Leavenworth, April 17, 1864.

Major General JAMES G. BLUNT:

GENERAL: I have just returned from the sick-bed of my wife, and find several very full and interesting letters form you. I have not time to take up the matters in detail, and I think a general reply will be sufficient . I have pressed the matter of troops to the utmost of my ability, and yet I get no decisive answer from proper parties. A very erroneous statement of the forces subject to my orders has been made to the Senate in Ex. Doc. 32, showing that the First Arkansas, Twelfth Kansas, Second Kansas, &c., were in my command on the 29th March, evidently making the statement upon the old report of the Army of the Frontier. It keeps me busy to correct errors accumulated in Washington. Your position will give you a better knowledge of the errors embraced in that Senate document, which I hope you will received through the mails. I concur with you in the opinion that the move on Shreveport would make a move on the upper Red River more desirable and easy, and I have urged the matter upon the authorities at Washington also as the easiest way of annoying the enemy in Texas. But dispatches from General Sherman indicated a desire to draw off troops from west of the Mississippi to Chattanooga, and from his expressions I perceive there is no prospect of any troops being sent to strengthen us at present, whatever may be the final determination of the meaning of "the military post of Fort Smith" and the posts connected.

In this view I must consider Fort Gibson our principal point on the Arkansas, and I think you should make that your headquarters, guarding well all passes of the Arkansas against movements through your district and against your line of operation, which must be through from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson. I fear that you being at Fort Smith will make us responsible for a post we have no troops to command, while things may go wrong at and above Fort Gibson, where we are responsible. I also hope that Captain Gerster will soon be able to come through. I want him to reconnoiter and make a brief sketch of points. I desire to fortify such as the salt-works, at the Illinois, and the crossing of streams on the route from Fort Gibson to Fort Scott. For this purpose you will give him a safe escort. I intend to have a line of posts on our route similar to those I established through Missouri via Springfield. You gave General Thayer a terrible castigation, which I hope will do him some good, but I am sorry your ordered the Fourteenth Battalion if any question existed as to their being on your own side of the line when the order was issued, because I have stated that troops in my command when the department was organized, but not now within my command, could not and would not be ordered out of another department except by the commander of each department or by orders from Washington, which I demanded.

Interfering with a single man or a section in the other department should therefore be strenuously avoided till the officers at Washington have ample time to act or refuse to act in the premises. Things are generally quiet in my department, and General Rosecrans is co-operating cordially on his side of the Missouri line. I understand, however, that rebels are thick about Fayetteville, and I apprehend more trouble in the rear as the season advances and the main force goes farther away.