obstructions, instead of defending both lines of obstructions, nearly 3,000 yards apart. Batteries Huger and treaty are unreliable, and that weak point ought to be strengthened by the two iron-clad steam batteries belonging to Navy.

V. SHELIHA,

Chief Engineer.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 185.
Richmond, August 6, 1864.

* * * * *

IX. Colonel John B. Weems, of the Invalid Corps, is assigned to duty as commandant of the post of Macon, Ga., and will report accordingly.

* * * * *

LVII. Major William Norris, chief of Signal Corps, will proceed to make a thorough inspection of the various signal corps stationed in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana.

* * * * *

By command of the Secretary of War:

SAML. W. MELTON,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

RICHMOND, VA., August 7, 1864.

General BRAXTON BRAGG,

Charlotte, S. C.:

By whose order was the guard at the Oconee bridge withdrawn? Investigate the case. General Gardner was designed to replace Lieutenant-General Taylor in Louisiana. He may be temporarily placed on duty in Georgia. I do not concur in the proposition to exchange Taylor and Hardee. In both cases it would be at the sacrifice of knowledge of country and troops.

JEFFN. DAVIS.

[NOTE. - Received in War Records Office too late for insertion in Vol. XXXVIII, Part V.]

HEADQUARTERS FORREST'S CAVALRY,
Okolona, Miss., August 7, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President, C. S. A.:

SIR: I have the honor to state that I am just in receipt of letter from Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, under date of 19th ultimo, accompanied by memorandum of instructions as to the irregularities and illegalities occurring in the organization of the various regiments of my command, which instructions require the election of field officers for several of the regiments as organized by me at Oxford, Miss., in February last. It is due to myself to state that, in organizing the WEST Tennessee regiments referred to, it was my understanding that elections for field officers could not be held, and that being made up as they were from the odds and ends of some twelve or fifteen reputed commands and of unattached companies and squads raised inside the enemy's lines, the field