that he send you the Fourth Missouri Cavalry Volunteers to replace the portion of the Fifth Illinois at Vicksburg. The major-general directs that upon the receipt of this you will relieve every officer and man in any manner detached from the Fifth Illinois within your command, and have the command in complete readiness to embark, with all equipage, horses, mules, transportation, property, and ten days' rations and forage, as soon as the Fourth Missouri is disembarked, whether by night or day, causing their immediate departure, to the end that not an hour may be lost be delay, and also that you furnish the steamers with sufficient coal and dry wood for the trip up, that delay may not occur from poor of insufficient fuel, and that you furnish the captains of the steamers with written orders to make no unnecessary landings, and complete the passage in the fewest hours, also impressing upon the senior officer on each steamer the necessity of promptness. The major-general also directs that the Eleventh New York and Twelfth Illinois Cavalry Volunteers by immediately re-embarked on the transports on which they arrived at Vicksburg and sent to Memphis, making same orders as to rations, forage fuel, promptness, &c., as in the case of the Fifth Illinois. As the commanding general has heard nothing from you as to your action under paragraph 3 of Special Orders, Numbers 23., dated December 28, 1864, from these headquarters, he directs that you furnish information if the original copy reached you, and that you forthwith send to Memphis all model barges at Vicksburg. The completion of any repairs on them will be made at Memphis, and that if these barges are not required for the transportation of the cavalry ordered to Memphis, that they be sent by other steamers than those carrying cavalry, that no delay may from towing. A copy of paragraph 3, Special Orders, Numbers 23, series of 1864, from these headquarters, is inclosed herewith. *

I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. H. HARRIS,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF MISSISSIPPI,
Memphis, Tenn., January 15, 1865.

Brigadier General J. W. DAVIDSON,

Commanding Division of Natchez, Natchez, Miss.:

GENERAL: I am instructed by the major-general commanding department to inform you that in response to your request for additional cavalry he this day issues the order sending you his strongest regiment, the Second New Jersey Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Karge, who distinguished himself during the raid, and to inform you that he desires you, on the receipt of this, to at once revoke all details of officers and men detached in any way within your command from the portion of the Fifth Illinois Cavalry at Natchez, and hold them in readiness to embark on the transports arriving with the Second New Jersey, as soon as that regiment has disembarked, provided with ten days' forage and rations, to the end that not an hour may be lost in the disembarking of the one or the embarkation and departure of the other, whether by day or night; also please furnish the steamers with all the coal and dry wood they can use on the up trip, and give the captain written

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*Omitted.

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