LITTLE ROCK, ARK., April 21, 1864.

Major General F. STEELE, Camden, Ark.:

Your orders of thee 17th and 18th instant received the morning of the 20th. I sent messengers to you on the 12th and 14th, with dispatches in relation to the supplies ordered by you on the 7th. Staff officers have been and are still hard at work arranging for trains, & c. I issued an order to Captain Carr to seize all horses and mules required to mount cavalry and fill up transportation, to pay loyal people, and exempt planters putting in crops as much as possible. Quite a large number of horses and mules will be brought in. The scarcity of animals caused by taking them for the train of 153 wagons sent from Pine Bluff required this order. Captain Carr thinks he will only be able to send between fifty and sixty wagons. The Twelfth Michigan, Sixty-second and One hundred and sixth Illinois Infantry, and Fifth and Eleventh Ohio Batteries are designated by General Kimball as the troops to accompany the train, and will be commanded by General West, unless I get orders from you to the contrary before they start. Two hundred cavalry from Pine Bluff will be here to-morrow noon to accompany General West to Camden. This will make about 2,200 in all - infantry, artillery, and cavalry. I ordered them to start from here with five days' cooked rations in haversacks, and ammunition and subsistence stores will be sent in proportion to the amount of transportation furnished by the quartermaster. Cannot send all carbines in arsenal.

All the transportation you can spare should be sent to Little Rock at once. Captain Cantine thinks, owing to uncertainty of navigation in the Arkansas, supplies should be sent from here. General West shows much zeal and energy, and I think he will take the troops and train through in good shape. They will get away Sunday morning. General Kimball wrote me a note this morning which I sent by Captain Dunham without comments. Dunham was asleep or resting all the time he was here, and had not time to see General Kimball, of which he spoke himself. I am hard at work all the time, but when anything comes from you I give my whole attention to it, in which I am ably and cheerfully seconded by all the staff officers.

The following explains itself:

Major-General STEELE:

Things are not going on here, I know, according to your liking. Send Manter here if you can't come with him yourself.

C. P. BERTRAND.

The telegraph line has been down for some ten or twelve days. Your telegram to General Halleck was sent by express from Clarksville to Van Buren, and copies by mail to General Halleck and General Sherman. Veterans are impatient to go home; a few are going on individual furloughs. The Third Wisconsin Cavalry will start in a day or two, and will guard the Confederate prisoners now here, nearly 400, to some depot in the North.

Very respectfully, & c.,

W. D. GREEN,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DETACH. 7TH ARMY CORPS, Numbers 19.
Little Rock, Ark., April 21, 1864.

I. The Sixty-second Illinois, Twelfth Michigan, and One hundred and sixth Illinois Infantry Regiments and the Fifth and Eleventh