RICHMOND, April 13, 1864.

General JOHNSTON,

Commanding at Dalton, Ga.:

Longstreet has been ordered to Virginia. He cannot join you. Can I tell the President you will assume offensive with 15,000 additional troops? It is important that I receive your reply immediately.*

BENJ. S. EWELL,

Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.

[32.]

HEADQUARTERS DETACHMENT LORING'S DIVISION,
Raleigh, Miss., April 13, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel T. M. JACK,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I forwarded to you a few days since a communication under care to Major-General Loring, supposing that he was still at Demopolis. That paper gave to the lieutenant-general a deatailed account of my movements in this part of the State. I have caught and had to report to me over 350 deserters and absentees, a large number of whom I have sent to their commands. I send to-day by Colonel Voorhies, Forty-eighth Tennessee, ninety-seven prisoners, and shall start this evening four paroled men, and to-morrow some fifteen or twenty more. Inclosed you will find a list+ of them, as well as a short address which I published to the people of the county. To-morrow I leave for Jones County, and will try to produce some reaction among the people. As I previously wrote you, I have executed two men by hanging, and one was shot and killed, having tried to escape. The sheriff has returned to his home and again entered upon his duties, and a general good feeling seems to prevail. If the Jones County deserters will remain in the limits of county I have no fears about succeeding. A squad of my men, twenty in number, got into Jones County or near the line by mistake some days ago. They were not molested until night, when a deserter slipped up and fired a shotgun into a group, killing one and wounding two others. I immediately sent down 100 men, brought off the wounded and disturbed no one. My object was to let them feel elated, and that they had triumphed. I learn that the men succeeded in identifying the man, and I will try every means to secure him, as he belongs to the Jones County organization. Colonel Voorhies, who is just form Covington and Simpson Counties with a team of wagons loaded with sugar, molasses, and bacon, which has been stored down there in the charge of Captain Van Eaton, assistant commissary of subsistence, reports the entire demoralization of the whole country. Most of the men belonging to commands in this department are at home. Loyalty to the Government is punished by death or banishment from home, and the deserters are organized for defense against the cavalry or plundering upon good and loyal citizens. I send also a list and history of prisoners (furnished by Captain Van Eaton) of those who were implicated in the attempt to seize the commissary stores in his charge, and were ringleaders in general plundering and stealing. The most rigid and summary punishment is necessary to correct these evils, and I will endeavor to break up these organizations and resore confidence and security among the good and loyal citizens. The effect of our arrival and operations are already felt in this section.

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* For reply, see VOL. XXXII, Part III, p. 781.

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+ Omitted.

42 R R-VOL LII, PT II