GRENADA, MISS.,

September 12, 1863.

Brigadier General S. W. FERGUSON,

Tupelo:

I have only one regiment at Abbeville; call on it if you need help. I start in the morning with all my command to be on hand if needed Headquarters at Abbeville.

J. R. CHALMERS,

Brigadier-General.

GRENADA, MISS.,

September 12, 1863.

Major G. W. HOLT,

Canton:

Yankees at Holly Springs three days within past week. Two hundred and fifty are encamped on Coldwater; 6 miles north of Holly Springs.

J. R. CHALMERS,

Brigadier-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.

Richmond, Va,, September 12, 1863

General BRAXTON BRAGG,

Commanding:

GENERAL: Your letter* of the 4th instant, to General Cooper, has been submitted to the President, and returned to me with the following indorsement:

The case demands great activity, with which it is hoped the enemy's purpose may be defeated by fighting his two columns separately. If the weaker can be beaten first the stronger will be attacked afterward with the advantage which success and re-enforcements will give. In the mean time it seems possible to operate effectively on Rosecrans' line of communication by sending out cavalry expeditions.

J. D.

I have preferred giving the President's suggestions in his own language.

Since your letter was written the evacuation of Chattanooga and other movements on your part may have rendered more difficult and doubtful an attack on Burnside's advancing column, but seem to necessitate a prompt blow at Rosecrans. Your own judgment, however, with full knowledge of the existing condition, must guide your decision and movements, and any suggestion is ventured with hesitation and diffidence. It may yet be safe and pardonable in me to express the conviction that early and decisive action against one or the other of the advancing columns of the enemy is essential to success in the campaign.

Our communications with General Samuel Jones, who at last accounts was advancing toward Jonesborough, have been cut off. In his last dispatch, received yesterday, he mentions, as a report from Lee County, said to have been received from an officer who escaped, that the command at Cumberland Gap had capitulated. He did not give credence to it, but it causes serious anxiety.

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*See Bragg's report, Part II, p. 21.

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