officer present for duty. The headquarters of the district will be at Bonnet Carre Bend, La. Monthly and tri-monthly returns and all requisitions to avoid delay in transmission will be sent direct to these headquarters as heretofore. Copies of returns will also be sent to the headquarters of the district.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

By command of Brigadier-General Sherman:

P. J. MALONEY,

First Lieutenant and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES, No. 1. Morganza, La., March 29, 1865.

In obedience to General Orders, No. 14, dated headquarters District of Morganza, March 28, 1865, the undersigned assumes command of the U. S. forces at and the Post of Morganza. The following-named officers will constitute the staff of this command until further orders: Captain Frank Money, Ninety-second U. S. Colored Infantry, acting assistant adjutant-general; First Lieutenant Frederick Davis, Eighty-fourth U. S. Colored Infantry, acting assistant quartermaster. The headquarters of the post will be with the headquarters Second Brigade, U. S. Colored Troops until the 31st instant. All reports and returns heretofore made to headquarters District of Morganza will in future be made to these headquarters.

WM. H. DICKEY,

Colonel Eighty-fourth U. S. Colored Troops.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
OFFICE OF PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

Saint Louis, March 29, 1865.

Brigadier General LEWIS B. PARSONS,

Assistant Quartermaster-General, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: Immediately upon entering on my duties here as provost-marshal-general my attention was drawn to the numerous cases of steam-boat burning by rebel emissaries on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. I received direct information from several quarters of the existence of organized bands sent here by the chiefs of the so-called Confederate Government to carry out their designs on our western transportation. The records of this office also furnished evidence, collected by my predecessors, to the same effect. Believing that an energetic effort on my part would result in exposing and securing some of the parties engaged in this infamous and murderous business, and perhaps of breaking it up altogether, I began a secret and thorough investigation of the matter here in this city, gradually enlarging the field of my operations until I had detectives in several of the principal river cities in other departments, and on one occasion I sent my agents beyond the lines. My most sanguine expectations were more than realized. I procured not only evidence of the existence of these organized bands, but also the names of the leaders of some of them, and the modus operandi of carrying on their work, together with the names and location of men inside the rebel lines who have the immediate charge of it, under the Secretary of War. Some of the parties have been arrested and are now in Gratiot Street prison awaiting trial, among whom is the leader of a gang operating in Louisville, Cairo, Memphis, and