very excellent road. From Somerset you can get into the road from Albany to Kingston, by Waitsborough, Monticello, and Jamestown. There is also another excellent road from Somerset to Montgomery, going up the east side of the South Fork of the Cumberland to Huntsville from Huntsville to Montgomery, and from Montgomery to Kingston or Knoxville. The great advantage of this route is that your right will be entirely protected by the South Fork as far as Huntsville, and the road from the Cumberland to Huntsville will be good at all seasons. Also on this route you can take the left fork of the road at Chitwood's, about 12 miles north of Huntsville which will take you to either Clinton, over a passable road, or to Grantsborough and on to Knoxville.

I suppose you have studied carefully the advantages and difficulties of the route from Lexington to Knoxville, by way of London, Barboursville, and Cumberland Gap; therefore, it will not be necessary for me to mention it. I will, however, say that the only advantage in the Cumberland Gap route consists in its passage through a barren region, which, if the Gap or Cumberland Ford were strongly held by our forces, would be inaccessible to the rebels. There is another route to Knoxville from London, by way of Williamsburg and Jacksborough, which I should select in preference to the Cumberland Gap route, as it passes over a more practicable country, and is more conveniently situated for obtaining forage.

Several persons living in Lexington and Nicholasville are engaged in the transportation business, and would gladly enter into an arrangement to haul supplies. Among them I can recommend Mr. H. B. Crow, of Nicholasville, both as a business man and a man of the strictest integrity.

Respectfully, &c.,

GEO. H. THOMAS.

Major-General U. S. Volunteers, Commanding.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO

Numbers 46.
Cincinnati, Ohio, April 20, 1863.

Captain H. G. Gibson, Third U. S. Artillery, is announced as chief of artillery for the Army of the Ohio. He will be obeyed and respected accordingly.

By command of Major-General Burnside:

LEWIS RICHMOND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

MURFREESBOROUGH, TENN.,

April 21, 1863-11 p.m.

His Excellency ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

President of the United States:

Thrice has notice directly come to me that some complaint has been lodged in the minds of persons high in authority, or in records in the War Office, against the working of my army police, or that there was a conflict of authority between civil and military. Each time I have stated that I know of none, and asked for he specifications, that I might remedy the evil. No reply has been given, no information of what this all means. If there be anything wrong I want to know it,