remounts, and it looks to me, in ridding along our columns, as though every officer had three or four led horses, and each regiment seems to be followed by at least fifty negroes and foot-sore soldiers riding on horses and mules. The custom was for each brigade to send out daily a foraging party of about fifty men, on foot, who invariably returned mounted, with several wagons loaded with poultry, potatoes, &c. ; and as the army is composed of about forty brigades you can estimate approximately the quantity of horses collected. Great numbers of these were shot by my order, because of the disorganizing effect on our infantry of having too many idlers mounted. General Easton is now engaged in collecting statistics in this line; but I know the Government will never receive full accounts of our captures, although the result aimed at was fully attained, viz., to deprive our enemy of them. All these animals I will have sent to Port Royal, or collected behind Fort McAllister, to be used by General Saxton in his farming operations, or by the quartermaster's department, after they are systematically accounted for. Whilst General Easton is collecting transportation for my troops to James River I will throw to Port Royal Island all our means of transportation I can, and collect the balance near Fort McAllister, covered by the Ogeechee River and intrenchments to be erected, and for which Captain Poe, my chief engineer, is now reconnoitering the ground; but in the meantime will act as I have begun, as though Savannah City was my objective, namely: the troops will continue to invest Savannah closely, making attacks and feints wherever we have firm ground to stand upon; and I will place some 30-pounder Parrots, which I have got from General Foster, in position near enough to reach the center of the city, and then will demand its surrender. If General Hardee is alarmed or fears starvation he may surrender; otherwise, I will bombard the city, but not risk the lives of my men by assaults across the narrow causeways by which alone I can now reach it. If I had time, savannah, with all its dependent fortifications, is already in our possession, for we hold all its avenues of supply. The enemy has made two desperate efforts to get goats form above to the city, in both of which he has been foiled-General Slocum, whose left flank rests on the river, capturing and burning the first boast, and in the second in stance driving back tow gun-boats and capturing the steamer Resolute, with seven navel officers and a crew of twenty-five seamen.

General Slocum occupies Argyle Island and the upper and of Hutchinson's Island, and has a brigade on the South Carolina shore opposite, and he is very urgent to pass one of his corps over to that shore; but, in view of the change of plans made necessary by your order of the 6th, I will maintain things in statu quo till have got all my transportation to the rear and out of the way, and until I have sea transportation for the troops you require at James River, which I will accompany and command in person. Of course I will leave Kilpatrick with his cavalry, say 5,300, and it may be a division of the fifteenth Corps; but before determining this I must see General Foster, and may arrange to shift his force (now over above the Charleston railroad, at the head of Broad River) to the Ogeechee, where, in co-operation with Kilpatrick's cavalry, ha can better threaten the State of Georgia than from the direction of Port Royal. Besides, I would much prefer not to detach from my regular corps any of its veteran divisions, and would even prefer that other less valuable troops should be sent to re-enforce Foster from some other quarter. My four corps, full of experience and full of ardor, coming to you en masses, equal to 60,000 fighting men, will be a re-enforcement that Lee cannot disregard. Indeed, with my present