the Fiftieth and Seventy-third Regiments are hereby detached from the division and will remain at this place. Colonel Charles A. Gilchrist will assume command of the detachment and will report direct to headquarters Department of the Gulf for instructions.

II. Colonel J. B. Jones, Sixty-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry, is hereby assigned to the command of the Third Brigade, and will enter upon the duty without delay.

* * * * *

By order of Brigadier General J. P. Hawkins:

SAML. B. FERGUSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF LA FOURCHE,
Brashear City, La., June 16, 1865.

Captain C. H. DYER,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Gulf:

SIR: Pursuant to orders in paragraph III, General Orders, Numbers 81, current series, from Your headquarters, I have the honor to report that there are at this time at Washington five companies of the Seventy-fifth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 225; Company K, First Louisiana Cavalry, aggregate 61. At New Iberia five companies Ninety-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 299. At Brashear five companies Ninety-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 305; First Battalion, Eleventh U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery (four companies), aggregate 438; Battery D, First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery 163; Battery G, Tenth U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery, aggregate 136; Battery A, Second Illinois Light Artillery, aggregate 182, no guns or horses; Twenty-fifth New York Light Battery, aggregate 146, six guns, fifty-nine horses. At Bayou Boeuf one company Seventy-fifth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 51. At Tigerville one company Seventy-fifth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 55. At Terre Bonne one company Seventy-fifth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 59. At Boutte one company Seventy-fifth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 49. At La Fourche Crossing and Bayou Des Allemands, each half of a company of the Seventy-fifth U. S. Colored Infantry, with headquarters at La Fourche Crossing, aggregate 53. At Thibodeaux six companies Seventy-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 361; Fourth Iowa Battery, aggregate 132. At Napoleonville the Third Rhode Island Cavalry (twelve companies), aggregate 679, ordered to be ready to take the field. At Donaldsville four companies Seventy-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry, aggregate 220; the First Louisiana Infantry, aggregate 557, whose time expires in August, and who I learn, though not officially, have been ordered to New Orleans to be mustered out. At Plaquemine Second Battalion, Eleventh U. s. Colored Heavy Artillery (four companies), aggregate 525, ordered to New Orleans. There is a line of telegraph running from New Orleans to Brashear, and a branch line running from Terre Bonne Station, on the railroad, through Thibodeaux and Napoleonville to Donaldsville. The poles are old, and from Terre Bonne to Donaldsonville very rotten, breaking often by the force of the wind. Otherwise the line is in good condition. The railroad from New Orleans to Terre Bonne is in fine condition, but from Terre Bonne to Brashear is has been under water, which is now receding, leaving the road for this part of the route, twenty-eight miles, useless without repairs. In my humble