River at Prospect. Give orders to Brigadier-General Gresham at Clifton to move to Athens, via Pulaski and Prospect. Have the remainder of the two divisions (Leggett's and Crocker's) follow you as soon as possible. Have all of them come fully provided with arms and equipments, transportation, and camp and garrison equipage. The complete organization of the division can be made when you get to Huntsville.

JAS. B. McPHERSON,

Major-General, Commanding.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. MIL. DIV. OF THE MISSISSIPPI, Numbers 12.
Nashville, Tenn., May 4, 1864.

I. Lieutenant Colonel Langdon C. Easton, quartermaster, U. S. Army, is announced as chief quartermaster for the army in the field.

II. Lieutenant Colonel E. D. Kittoe, medical inspector, U. S. Army, is announced as chief medical inspector for the army in the field.

By order of Major General W. T. Sherman:

R. M. SAWYER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. SEVENTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Numbers 1.
Cairo, Ill., May 4, 1864.

I. In compliance with paragraph I, General Orders, Numbers 178, dated War Department, Adjutant-General's Office, April 23, 1864,* the undersigned hereby assumes command of the Seventeenth Army Corps.

II. Lieutenant Colonel A. J. Alexander, assistant adjutant-general, is announced as assistant adjutant-general of the corps.

F. P. BLAIR, JR.,

Major-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Chattanooga, May 5, 1864-9 a. m.

(Received 11.15 a. m.)

A. LINCOLN,

President of the United States, Washington, D. C.:

We have worked hard with the best talent of the country, and it is demonstrated that the railroad cannot supply the army and the people too. One or the other must quit, and the army don't intend to, unless Joe Johnston makes. us. The issues to citizens have been enormous, and the same weight of corn or oats would have saved thousands of the mules, whose carcasses now corduroy the roads, and which we need so much. We have paid back to Tennessee ten for one of provisions taken in war. I will not change my order, and I beg of you to be satisfied that the clamor is partly humbug, and for effect; and to test it, I advise you to tell the bearers of the appeal to hurry to Kentucky and make up a caravan of cattle and wagons and come over the mountains by Cumberland Gap and Somerset, to relieve their suffering friends, on foot, as they used to do before a railroad was built. Tell them they have no time to lose. We can relieve all actual suffering by each com-

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*See Vol. XXXII, Part III, p. 465.

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3 R R - VOL XXXVIII, PT IV