infantry with Sharps and Spencer rifles, distributed in proper proportion and the cavalry with saber and pistol.

I am, sir, very respectfully,

LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU,

Major-General of Volunteers.

[Indorsement.]

AUGUST 10 1863.

I fully appreciate the importance of increasing the cavalry force of the army, but I see no advantages in this project over the usual plan of enlisting for existing organizations. It greatly increases the number of officers, already out of proportion to the men. Moreover, it carries on its face the idea of a special organization for a special purpose and with a special commander. In other words, it resembles those independent organizations which have caused so much discontent and trouble whenever the exigencies of the service require them to be employed in a different way.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

[Inclosure.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND,
Winchester, Tenn., July 26, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

As you approve of General Rousseau's suggestions and views as to the advantage of raising an additional mounted force of 10,000 men to operate against the rebels from this direction, I have sent him to Washington with letters to yourself and General halleck, and directed him to lay before you the plan which he has of obtaining from the disciplined troops recently mustered out of the service in the East such a mounted force as would enable us to command the country south of us, and control its resources, cut off the enemy's means of drawing supplies from the country, destroy his lines of communication, and restore law and order to the entire country from which we have expelled the insurgents, a thing now impossible, because no one desires to avow his sentiments for fear the rebel cavalry or guerrillas will wreak vengeance on them. At the expense of repeating what I have so often laid before the War Department

when urging the necessity of cavalry arms for the force we actually had in pay, but badly armed and mounted, I beg leave to state:

1st. An adequate cavalry force would have given us control of all Middle Tennessee, with all its forage, horses, cattle, and mules, driven the enemy from it without the battle of Stone's River, and re-established civil order.

2nd. It would save us 5,000 infantry, now guarding our lines of communication, and the attendant expense.

3rd. We could have destroyed the enemy's communication and compelled him to relinquish East Tennessee and Chattanooga, and return to Atlanta.

4th. We could have developed, by giving protection to it, the Union sentiment which does not manifest itself much beyond the limits of our infantry lines, for fear of calling down the vengeance of the rebel cavalry and guerrillas, whose superior numbers and knowledge of the country has hitherto given them almost exclusive control of it. As we advance we shall have the same condition of things renewed in our