Today in History:

532 Series I Volume I- Serial 1 - Charleston

Page 532 OPERATIONS IN TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. Chapter VII.

[Inclosure. G.]


SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF TEXAS,

No. 34. San Antonio, February 26, 1861.

Bvt. Lieutenant Colonel D. T. Chandler, U. S. Army, will proceed to the headquarters of the Army and deliver the dispatches with which he is charged. He will traced with all possible haste, and it is important that the information continued in the communications intrusted to his charge should reach Washington as early as possible.

On arriving in Louisiana, Colonel Chandler will communicate with the governor of that State, and ascertain if a safe transit for the troops evacuating Texas will be afforded through the State of Louisiana, with permission to purchase the necessary supplies and secure the required means of transportation. For this purpose he will deliver a communication addressed to the governor of that State by the commissioner on behalf of the committee of public safety of the State of Texas. After having complied with these instructions, Colonel Chandler will return to San Antonio.

By order of Colonel C. A. Waite:

W. A. NICHOLS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.


HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF TEXAS,
San Antonio, March 6, 1861.

COLONEL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communications forwarded by Major Porter, assistant adjutant-general, which were delivered to me on the 4th instant by Lieutenant Major Second Cavalry. Major Porter was to leave Indianola on the 2nd instant for Brazos Santiago.

The difficulty of placing provisions at Brazos Santiago for the use of the troops whilst awaiting the arrival of the transports the arrival of the transports, the collection of a large Texan force at Brownsville or in its vicinity, which would render a depot at that place insecure, and the small number of United States troops on the Rio Grande below Fort McIntosh, have induced me to change my arrangements so for as to have all the troops embark at Indianola. should it, however, be deemed expedient hereafter to have a part of the troops embark at the Brazos, the transports can easily be ordered from Indianola to that point. I have, therefore, to request that all of the vessels sent out to take the troops may be directed to proceed to Indianola.

Two companies of the Third Infantry (Johns' and Clitz's) were ordered to Fort Brown from Ringgold Barracks to relieve the artillery, and as it is probable that they reached that post before the arrival at Brazos of the steamer Daniel Wenster, I presume they embarked with the artillery. Major Porter wrote me that he would "make every effort to take with me [him] the garrison of Ringgold Barracks."

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

C. A. WAITE,

Colonel, U. S. Army, Commanding Department.

Lieutenant Colonel L. THOMAS, Assistant Adjutant-General,

Headquarters of the Army, Washington, D. C.

P. S. - I beg that it may be borne in mind that I am dependent entirely on the commissioners on the part of Texas for the use of the means of transportation which were heretofore under the control of the Quartermaster's


Page 532 OPERATIONS IN TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. Chapter VII.