your charge. There are no means at my command of ascertaining the amount of work done or its cost previous to that time.

The railroads included in this report in the Military Division of the Mississippi are the Nashville and Chattanooga, Shelbyville Branch, McMinnville and Manchester, Nashville and Decatur, Mount Pleasant Branch, Memphis and Charleston (Eastern Division), Chattanooga and Knoxville, Cleveland and Dalton Branch, Atlanta and Macon, Nashville and Clarksville, Knoxville and Bristol, Rogersville Branch, Memphis and Charleston (Western Division), Mississippi Central, Mobile and Ohio, Louisville City; and in the Department of North Carolina the Atlantic and North Carolina, Wilmington and and Gaston.

The cost of material used and labor performed on buildings is not included in the following statements of cost. All other materials not specified are included in the cost of labor. Having made full reports to you under date of May 20 and November 30, 1865, of all operations on the military railroads in North Carolina while I filled the position of chief engineer and general superintendent, I deem it unnecessary to repeat them here, and have therefore in this report confined myself exclusively to the items of construction and maintenance of way.

On the 19th of December, 1863, I received your order to accompany your "to Chattanooga, Tenn., with such portion of the construction force as could be spared from the front" in Virginia.

One division of the Construction Corps, numbering about 285 men, was taken and we arrived in the Military Division of the Mississippi on the 1st of January, 1864. At the time of our arrival the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad (151 miles long, extending from Nashville to Chattanooga) was being operated between Nashville and Bridgeport, and the Tennessee River and Running Water bridges were building. Our construction force was at once put to work between Bridgeport and Chattanooga, the bridge builders to assist in the completion of the Running Water and other bridges, and the track layers to repair the track and relay the portion that had been destroyed. This work was completed and the first train run into Chattanooga on the 14th of January, some three weeks sooner than was deemed possible previous to our taking charge of the work. There was great rejoicing in the army in Chattanooga at the completion of the railroad, and feeling confident that a sufficiency of supplies could now be obtained, the chief commissary of the Department of the Cumberland issued full rations to the whole army on and after that day, the first time this had been done since the occupation of the town. Although this road was now completed, it was not in condition to susraffic that woul thrown upon it when General Sherman's whole army would have to be supplied over it. the superstructure was old and much worn and had never been of first-class character. The rail used was light were so much decayed in many places that they would not hold the spikes. Accordingly orders were given to relay the track over the whole road with T-rail in the best manner. For this work, and that to be done on the other lines which were to be opened up, a large additional force was required, and arrangements were at once made for an abundant supply completion, though necessarily at a great disadvantage in consequence of