as such: Captain A. S. Burt, additional aide-de-camp, and Captain G. S. Hubbard, jr., Eighty-eighth Illinois Volunteers.

* * * * * *

By command of Major-General Rosecrans:

C. GODDARD,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF CENTRAL KENTUCKY,
Lexington, Ky., March 4, 1863.

Major General HORATIO G. WRIGHT,

Commanding Department of the Ohio:

My dispatches from Colonel Runkle place him at Mount Sterling yesterday, with the enemy off in his front, and keeping out of his way. Runkle has not managed his pursuit well, and I shall relieve him at once from the immediate command of the forces about Mount Sterling.

Colonel Gilbert, with 900 mounted men, is at Richmond watching both ways, viz, Cluke's retreat from the State, in a southwesterly direction, and the reported advance, from Wayne and Clinton Counties, of another rebel force, variously estimated at from 1,000 to 3,000, probably much nearer the former, if it exceeds it. Colonel Wolford is at Mount Vernon, ready to act in either direction, with about 900 men, I think. He has not yet reported his actual strength.

I believe the rebels are about to cross the Cumberland below Somerset, and expect to hear something reliable as to their strength in a few hours.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Q. A. GILLMORE,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
Cincinnati, Ohio, March 4, 1863.

Brigadier General JULIUS WHITE,

Commanding Eastern District of Kentucky, Louisa, Ky.:

GENERAL: Your communication of February 22,* in regard to future operations in your district, has been received, and the facts and arguments therein adduced have been duly considered. Your remarks in regard to a base of operations, line of communication, and the disadvantages consequent on the peculiar shape of your district, are correct, more particularly as applying to the movements of a large army; but, under the circumstances which surround and control operations in your district, such as the nature of the country, character and number of your troops, as well as those of the enemy, &c., we cannot expect to adhere too strictly to al the precise and arbitrary rules of warfare, to which the management of a larger force, and under other circumstances, would necessarily be subjected.

Your statements in regard to the possible effects of occupying the less desirable and less reliable portion of the district, leaving the lower and better portion of it perhaps less securely guarded, for the somewhat uncertain protection of the whole district, are, doubtless, in a measure correct; and the arguments against the policy of the movement would be, to some extent, well founded, if the only great object

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*Not found.

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