MILLEDGEVILLE, July 7, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

Richmond:

I regret the exhibition of temper with which I am met in your dispatch refusing to grant my request to send Forrest or Morgan, or both, with their commands, to cut off Sherman's supplies and relieve my State. I have not pretended to dictate, but when Georgia has forty to fifty regiments defending Richmond and Atlanta is in great danger, probably no one but yourself would consider the anxiety of the efforts of her Governor to use every argument in his power to obtain re-enforcements just cause of rebuke, while the defense of the Gulf States depends upon the strength of one of the armies now in front of Atlanta and the Western States upon the other. If you continue to keep our forces divided and our cavalry raiding and meeting raids while enemy's line of communication, nearly 300 miles from his base, is unuinterrupted, I fear the result will be similar to those which followed a like policy of dividing our forces at Murfreesborough and Chattanooga. If Atlanta is sacrificed and Georgia overrun while our cavalry are engaged in distant raids, you will have no difficulty in ascertaining, from correct sources of information, what was expected of you by the whold people, and what verdict posterity will record from your statements as to the relative strength of the two armies. I venture, at the hazard of further rebuke, to predict that your official estimates of Sherman's numbers are as incorrect as your official calculations at Missionary Ridge were erroneous.

JOS. E. BROWN.

[38.]

RICHMOND, VA., July 7, 1864.

Honorable T. H. WATTS,

Montgomery, Ala.:

Please aid, by your official and moral power, in the organization of reserves to re-enforce the garrison of MObile at the earliest possible moment.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

[39.]

MONTGOMERY, July 7, 1864.

General S. COOPER:

At request of General Johnston and Governors of Alabama and Georgia, I have ordered ten companies of reserves to protect railroad bridge at West Point.

J. M. WITHERS,

Major-General.

[39.]

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Chattahoochee River, Ga., Numbers 1. July 7, 1864.

I. In conformity with paragraph I, Special Orders, Numbers 37, headquarters Army of Tennessee, dated July 4, 1864, the undersigned assumes command of the Army of the Mississippi.