LEWISBURG, January 4, 1865.

Major LEWERING,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Little Rock:

MAJOR: Scouts in report the rebels as having left Beatty's Mill and gone toward Dardanelle. Dispatch from Norristown reports the rebels as having left Dardanelle and camped last night at Boggs' Mill, on the Chickalah, six miles from Dardanelle. Steamer Lotus not arrived yet; on bar seven miles below.

A. H. RYAN,

Colonel.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE FRONTIER,
Fort Smith, Ark., January 4, 1865.

Colonel WILLIAM A. PHILIPS, Commanding Indian Brigade:

On the 31st ultimo I sent an order for you to toward to this place subsistence stores as follows: Twenty-two thousand pounds of flour, 20,000 ponds of hard bread, 3,200 pounds of coffee and 100 pounds of tea 6,000 pounds of sugar, and 1, 6000 pounds of salt. On the 2nd instant I directed you to send, in addition to the above, 20,000 pounds of hard bread, 2,000 pounds of coffee, 3,000 pounds of sugar, and 1,000 pounds of salt. I wish you would send me, in addition to what has been already ordered, 20,000 pounds of hard bread, 4,800 pounds of coffee, 9,000 pounds of sugar, and 2,400 pounds of salt. These three several orders require you to send me subsistence stores, in the aggregate, as follows: Forty-four thousand pounds of flour, 80,000 pounds of hard bread, 10,000 pounds of coffee, 18,000 pounds of sugar, 100 pounds of tea, and 5,000 pounds of salt. A dispatch has gone to Colonel Fair, commanding Fifty-fourth U. S. Colored Infantry, directing him, in case he has started from Gibson before this reaches you, to halt and send back to Gibson sixty teams to transport the additional subsistence stores which you have been directed in this to send down here. This order has been made for the reason that I have received information that a large force of the enemy are moving up to the Arkansas River about Dardanelle, and I do not know but that I may be detained by them in my movements to Little Rock. I shall expect you to send a sufficient force down, if one has not already started, to escort Captain Insley's train and the artillery and ammunition I am to send you back to Gibson. This duty require a regiment. Should it be that you have not at Gibson had bread and coffee sufficient to fill these orders you will send their equivalents.

Respectfully,

JOHN M. THAYER,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 4, 1865.

(Received 7th.)

Major-General DANA, Memphis, via Cairo:

Your order putting railroad employes in militia organizations is not approved. You will give them a special organization under their own officers and require them to do military duty only in cases of special danger. This rule is adopted here in regard to quastermaster and other Government employes.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General and Chief of Staff.