you are in my jurisdiction, but I certainly cannot help you in the way of orders or men, nor do I think you need either. General Cruft has just arrived with his provisional division, which will at once be broken up and the men sent to their proper regiments, as that of Meagher was on my arrival. You may have some feeling about my asking that General Slocum should have command of the two corps that properly belonged to you, viz, Fourteenth and Twentieth, but you can recall that he was but a corps commander and could not legally make orders of discharge, transfer, &c., which were imperatively necessary. I therefore asked that General Slocum be assigned to command an army in the field, called the Army of Georgia, composed of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps. The order is not yet made by the President, though I have recognized it, because both General Grant and the President sanctioned it and promised to have the order made. My army is now here, pretty well clad and provided, divided into three parts of two corps each, much as our old Atlanta army. I expect to move on in a few days, and propose, if Lee remain in Richmond, to pass the Roannoke and open communication with the Chowan and Norfolk. This will bring me in direct communication with General Grant. This is an admirable point; country open and the two railroads in good order back to Wilmington and Beaufort. We have already brought up enough to fill our wagons, and only await some few articles and the arrival of some men marching up from the coast to be off. General Grant explained to me his orders to you, which of course are all right. You can make reports direct to Washington or General Grant, but keep me advised occasionally of the general state of affairs, that I may know what is transpiring. I must give my undivided attention to matters here. You will hear from a thousand sources pretty fair accounts of our next march.

Yours, truly,

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

KNOXVILLE, April 5, 1865.

Brigadier General WILLIAM D. WHIPPLE,

Chief of Staff:

Please inform the major-general commanding that there are over 2,000,000 rations of hard bread here, and other stores in proportion, and that I have directed Captain Little to send all stores to Chattanooga for the present. I leave for Chattanooga to-morrow.

J. C. READ,

Captain and Chief Commissary of Subsistence.

HEADQUARTERS FOURTH ARMY CORPS,
Lick Creek, East Tenn., April 5, 1865.

Brigadier-General ELLIOTT,

Commanding Second Division:

The general commanding directs that you send to-morrow morning all of the axmen of your division down the railroad in the direction of Swan Pond until they meet the broad-ax men to be sent up at the same time in the direction of Midway by Mr. Latimer, chief of the railroad construction party. These men will be required to get out railroad ties at the place where they will meet the broad-ax men and to work up the road in the direction of Blue Springs. Let them make out their dinners