PORT HUDSON, La., February 28, 1863.

Lieutenant-General PEMBERTON:

Your cipher has been received. Will make the effort, but cannot succeed at present. See my telegram of yesterday on the subject. The Confederate left two field-pieces on [Indianola?]* which I suspect were blown up.

C. L. STEVENSON.

HDQRS. FIRST MIL. DIST., DEPT. MISS. AND E. La., Columbus, MISS., February 28, 1863.

General S. COOPER,
Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond, Va.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to forward the remainder of the correspondence between Governor Moore, of Louisiana, and myself up to this date, embracing his letter of the 2nd of January, 1863, and mine in reply of the 22nd of February instant, with the request that you will lay it, in connection with my letter of the 2nd of December, 1862, to Governor Moore, already forwarded to your office on the 6th of December, +before the President for his information. It will show, I trust, that the implied disparagement of my administration of a part of the military district embracing Eastern Louisiana with which I was then charged was not only unjust but without a foundation for its inception.

I am, general, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,

DANIEL RUGGLES.

Abstract from return of the Department of Mississippi and Eastern Louisiana, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton commanding, for February 28, 1863.

Present for duty

Command Officers Men Aggregate Aggregate

present present

and

absent

First District 87 1,944 2,329 2,821

[Ruggles]

SECOND District 630 8,991 11,931 16,615

[Stevenson]:

Stevenson's

DIVISION

Smith's DIVISION 436 5,423 7,885 9,864

Maury's DIVISION 482 6,173 8,718 12,304

Total SECOND 1,548 20,587 28,534 38,783

District

THIRD District 975 10,992 15,572 20,606

[Gardner]++

Fourth District 64 582 842 1,231

[John Adams]&

Loving's DIVISION 346 4,296 5,612 7,335

Bowen's DIVISION 393 4,183 5,560 7,205

Grand total 3,413 42,584 58,449 77,981

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*Illegible word.

+See Series I, vol. XV, pp. 890-894.

++For this command more in detail, see Series I, VOL. XV, p. 1000.

&The troops in this district at this date were the First [Mississippi] Choctaw Battalion, First Mississippi Battalion State Troops, Fourteenth Mississippi Infantry, and two companies of Tennessee cavalry.

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