persons subject to the order of the district commander to arrest all such characters and bring them before the enrolling officer of the nearest command.

III. Assistant enrolling officers will be appointed for every brigade and post in this district. General Cooper will assign the duties of assistant enrolling officer at his division headquarters to some member of his staff.

IV. Men enrolled may select any command [within the district] of white troops, but will not be enrolled in an Indian command unless upon application of the commanding officer of the regiment, and in the event the person enrolled has no horse he will be assigned to the command now acting as infantry or one of the batteries.

V. Monthly reports and descriptive lists will be forwarded to the chief enrolling officer, and descriptive lists of persons enrolled at once furnished to the company commander of the company to which they are assigned.

By order of Brigadier General S. B. Maxey:

T. M. SCOTT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT,]

Shreveport, La., January 14, 1864.

Lieutenant General T. H. HOLMES:

Send Parsons' brigade here. Make such disposition as you think best of Fagan and Marmaduke. If they can be subsisted in that country it would be well to let them do so.

By command of Lieutenant-General Smith:

W. R. BOGGS,

Brigadier-General and Chief of Staff.

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT, Shreveport, January 15, 1864.

Hon. R. W. JOHNSON:

MY DEAR SIR: Your long and interesting letter of November 18 was received, through Dr. Mitchell, as I was on the eve of leaving for Arkansas. Confident of soon being able to give you good news, I delayed writing till the fulfillment of my hopes could make your heart glad. Arriving at Camden I found the situation of affairs very different from that I had been led to expect. Constant and exaggerated reports of an advance had alarmed the enemy and made him watchful: he was strong and prepared. Pine Bluff had been strongly fortified. I obtained a plan of the works; they were complete and capable of resisting an assault. At Little Rock 1,000 negroes had been employed for over a month and the fortifications had already assumed a formidable character; the garrison there, at the lowest estimates, was 9,000; the outposts were drawn in and re-enforcements received from Fort Smith. Without including the garrison of four regiments at Pine Bluff, General Steele could have concentrated in four days a force of over 12,000 effective men. Including a division ordered up to Monroe from lower Louisiana the whole disposable force at my command would not have exceeded