[AUGUST 19, 1863.]

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War:

The President requests me to say that he has no objection to ordering all of the officers and soldiers of the following Louisiana regiments to report to Colonel Allen, at Alexandria (that is, all of them now west of the Mississippi River), to wit: Third, Seventeenth, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, and Thirty-first Louisiana Infantry, and the Pointe Coupee battery, giving him full powers to recruit the same, or, if necessary, to consolidate the small regiments into larger ones.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. ALLEN.

[Indorsement.]

AUGUST 19, 1863.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL:

Order the within-named regiments to rendezvous, under Brigadier-General Allen, at Shreveport, La., or at such other point as may be designated by General E. K. Smith, and let him be authorized to recruit, or as asked within.*

J. A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF TEXAS, &C., No. 223.
Near Millican, August 9, 1863.

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III. Colonel [Joseph] Bates will proceed with his command to Velasco, and assume command, making such disposition of his forces as he thinks best for the defense of the place.

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[By command of Major-General Magruder:

GEO. A. MAGRUDER, Jr.,
Major, and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.]

ENGINEER BUREAU,

August 20, 1863.

Lieutenant General E. KIRBY SMITH,

Commanding Trans-Mississippi Department:

GENERAL: I have the honor to send you the following list of them who, by the wish of the honorable Secretary of War are to be employed in your department on the special service of destroying the enemy's property by torpedoes and similar inventions, viz:

John Kirk, Charles Littlepage, John Silure, Robert Creuzbaur, E. Allen, W. D. Miller, and C. Williams.

These men should each be enlisted in, and form part of, an engineer company, but will nevertheless be employed, so far as possible, in the service specified above, and when the public interests, in your judgment, require it, details of additional men may be made, either from the engineer troops or from the line, to aid them in their particular duties. Their compensation will be 50 per cent. of the property destroyed by

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*See Special Orders, No. 198, p.174.

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