[Indorsement.]

General BRAGG:

See pencil-mark on margin calling attention to statement in reference to wagons and artillery horses.* Compare this with the report of General Pendleton communicating views and wants of General Johnston.+

J. D.

[Inclosure Numbers 2.]

RICHMOND, [April] 23, 1864.

Lieutenant General L. POLK:

If Loring's division is not essential for immediate operations in your department, order it to join Johnston at Dalton. It should move direct to Rome by Blue Mountain Railroad, marching over the unfinished part and taking its transportation with [it]. Answer by telegraph.

BRAXTON BRAGG.

[Inclosure Numbers 3.]

DEMOPOLIS, April 25, 1864.

General BRAGG,

Richmond:

I refer you to my dispatch of 17th instant to General Cooper. I have no reason to believe it is the enemy's intention to abandon the movement therein indicated, and in view of the important interests at stake think it not prudent to remove that division from my front for the present.

L. POLK,

Lieutenant-General.

[Inclosure Numbers 4.]

DEMOPOLIS, April 17, 1864.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond:

Scouts report from Vicksburg and Memphis a continued movement of enemy's troops up the Mississippi; also, arrival of troops at Waterloo from below by way of Tennessee River. They march them around the shoals on the north side to Decatur, where they are concentrating. There are few troops on the Mississippi. Following just received:

On the 10th there were two divisions of infantry and four regiments of cavalry at Decatur, one division of infantry at Athens, one on the way from Nashville, and one division at Huntsville-all under command of Logan, and preparing for a movement in two columns down Jones' Valley in direction of Tuscaloosa and Coosa Valley toward Selma. The commands number about 20,000.

L. POLK,

Lieutenant-General.

[Indorsement on jacket.]

General COOPER:

Please read and confer with me on contents.

J. D.

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* Statement in italics.

+ See p. 622.

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