II. All citizens and servants wearing the United States uniform without permission will be arrested, stripped, and punished according to the nature of the offense. Quartermasters will at once make requisitions for clothing to be issued to servants and employes not entitled to wear the uniform.

By command of Major-General Rosecrans:

C. GODDARD,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff.

CORINTH, MISS., February 10, 1863.

Major-General ROSECRANS:

One of my scouts left Van Dorn Sunday night. He then had two regiments and one battery across the Tombigbee, at Cotton-Gin Port; was crossing slowly, and all his forces had not got to him. His men and officers said he was going to Bragg. His stock is not in good condition. He appears to be going the Pikeville and Russellville road. What little capacity [sic] I have is over there. Streams are high, and roads bad. We captured mail from Bragg's army yesterday. All the officers' and privates' letters express a belief that Bragg is fixing to fall back, some say to Huntsville, some to Bridgeport. You can judge how reliable such suspicions are. I have endeavored to get a gunboat up to Florence, and if one could go there it could destroy all the forces, and check Van Dorn materially. I will co-operate with it in any way to benefit the service.

G. M. DODGE,

Brigadier-General.

HDQRS. FIFTH DIVISION, FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Murfreesborough, Tenn., February 10, 1863.

MAJOR: It has occurred to me that some facts not strictly belonging to the military report of the recent expedition of the Fifth Division should be made known,* and I have accordingly prepared the following narrative:

Left Murfreesborough on the morning of February 3, and bivouacked that night at Auburn, about 22 miles by the southern road. The inhabitants generally on this day's march kept aloof from us, and evinced no pleasure at our coming. Auburn, a small village, was nearly deserted, and most of the houses unoccupied, and the people who were there remained in their houses. We noticed an occasional farm deserted, and everything that could subsist man and beast gone. Such places belonged to loyal men whose property had been taken by the rebel army, and whose families were refugees, the sons in many cases being conscripts in the rebel service. Where a farm presented any appearance of life and prosperity, forage, animals, and people would be found, the property belonging to rebels and the forage and animals spared by the rebel army.

On the morning of the 4th, we started early on the road to Liberty. Soon after leaving Auburn and entering a more broken country, I discovered small bodies on the hills. These bodies did not act in any concert. Some were armed, and others not. We at once discovered the

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* See expedition from Murfreesborough to Auburn, & c., February 3 -5, Part I, p. 42.

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