his forces are at work; also two battalions of cavalry, to go south of Pocahontas, to watch movements of the enemy. General Smith has not advised Dodge of his movements.

R. J. OGLESBY.

HEADQUARTERS Fifteenth ARMY CORPS,
June 2, 1863.

Major General U. S. GRANT:

DEAR GENERAL: Admiral Porter,, with some of his junior officers, was here, on horseback, the day before yesterday, the same on which I found you complaining of illness.

I took the party forward to the trenches, the sun glaring hot, and the admiral got tired and overheated, so that, although we proposed coming to see you, he asked me to make his excuses, and say he would come again to make you a special visit. He took the loss of the Cincinnati in good part, and expressed himself willing to lose all the boats if he could do any good. He wanted to put a battery of heavy guns ashore, and I told him there could be no objection, and, accordingly, Captain Selfridge came up last evening, and said he was prepared to land two 8-inch howitzers-to man and work them-if I would haul these guns out and build a parapet. I can put the party and their guns on Steele's Hill. The hauling will be on a dead-level road till the guns reach the foot of the hill, and the troops can haul them up. I don't think 8-inch howitzers can do any particular good at that point, but they will clear off that hill, and make the enemy suppose it is to be one of our main points of attack.

Captain Selfridge is just down from Yazoo and Sunflower. In Sunflower they found the following boats burned and destroyed by the enemy: Dewdrop, Argosy, Sharp, and Argo. In the Yazoo, 15 miles below Greenwood, four boats were sunk across the channel, closing the channel. They, too, were burned to the water's edge, and otherwise destroyed. These were the Scotland, R. J. Lockland, John Walsh, and Golden Era.

[S. W.] Ferguson was at Greenwood, with a small force, and it was represented that about FIFTEEN boats remained in the Yazoo above the obstruction and below Greenwood, which the gunboats could not reach.

I am, &c.,

W. T. SHERMAN,

WALNUT HILLS, MISS., June 2, 1863.

Major General U. S. GRANT, Present:

DEAR GENERAL: I would most respectfully suggest that you use your personal influence with President Lincoln to accomplish a result on which it may be the ultimate peace and security of our country depends. I mean his use of the draft to fill up our old regiments. I see by the public journals that a draft is to be made, and that 100,000 men are to be assigned to fill up the old regiments, and 200,000 to be organized as new troops.

I do not believe that Mr. Lincoln, or any man, would, at this critical period of our history, repeat the fatal mistakes of last year. Taking this army as a fair sample of the whole, what is the case? The regiments do not average 300 men, nor did they exceed that strength last fall. When the new regiments joined us in November and December, their rolls contained about 900 names, whereas now their ranks are even thinner than the older organizations. All who deal with troops in fact