MAY 2, 1864-4.20

General McCLERNAND:

The troops are bivouacked just in front of Lawler's first line on the 28th. Not a man has been hurt. I have been on the skirmish line for an hour past, and do not think the enemy are in force equal to ours.

SAMUEL CALDWELL,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
Alexandria, May 2, 1864.

Brigadier-General SMITH,

Commanding Detachment Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps:

By direction of the major-general commanding you will detail twenty-five 6-mule teams, under charge of a reliable officer, to report to Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, acting military engineer, at the dam now building, punctually at 7 a.m. to-morrow.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEO. B. DRAKE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

(Same to Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey and Chandler.)

HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES,
Port Hudson, May 2, 1864.

Brigadier General H. W. BIRGE,

Commanding, Baton Rouge:

I have the honor of acknowledging the receipt of your telegram of to-day, informing me that you had assumed command of the District of Baton Rouge.

Our information as to the force and movements of the enemy is uncertain. He has been encamped at Whitaker Springs and beyond Clinton. He is variously estimated from 200 to 800. There is a force on the right side of the river, and they have had means for crossing at Morgan's Ferry, Tunica Bend, and at a point some 4 miles this side of Baton Rouge. Until within a few days they had pickets on the Clinton plank road. Our information last week was that an attack on Baton Rouge was intended, but that the force expected at Clinton did not arrive.

DANIEL ULLMANN,

Brigadier-General of Volunteers, Commanding.

GENERAL FIELD ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMY IN THE FIELD, Numbers -.
Camp 22, May 2, 1864.

I. The command will march to-morrow at 6 a.m., in the following order:

First. Third Division, Seventh Army Corps: (1) Advance guard, (2) pioneer corps, (3) three cannons captured from the enemy, escorted by one company of the Second Kansas Volunteers, African