take Vicksburg a failure, and are afraid Grant will undertake a movement. Their command is composed of militia, partisan rangers, and the mounted robbers of this State. They are concentrating at four or five different places, viz, Bear Creek, Fulton, Ripley, Pontotoc, Verona, and on the roads leading from Grand Junction and Memphis south. As soon as they are fixed I will need strength at each place. All four of the scouts agree in their reports, and the movements south and east of me corroborate them.

G. M. DODGE.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS. Numbers 40.
Memphis, Tenn., April 8, 1863.

The left wing of the SIXTEENTH Army Corps will, until further orders, include the Districts of Jackson and Corinth.

Major General Richard J. Oglesby is assigned to its command, and will establish his headquarters at Jackson.

By order of Major General S. A. Hurlbut:

HENRY BINMORE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

MEMPHIS, TENN., April 9, 1863.

Brigadier General Greenville M. DODGE, Comdg. at Corinth:

SIR: I am just informed by letter from General Grant that Ellet's Marine Brigade has been ordered up the Tennessee, to co-operate with you. You will open communication with him, and place him and his command under your orders. The brigade passed here yesterday morning without reporting, for which I desire you to reprimand General Ellet. The Autocrat is his headquarters boat. You may expect him off Hamburg about to-morrow night or on the 11th.

Grant had sent me a regiment (NINTH Illinois Cavalry), about 560 strong, but with most wretched horses. I shall fit them up as soon as practicable and send them to you. I am still anxiously awaiting horses.

I also inclose you copy of telegram just received from Rosecrans,* and my answer. + As soon as you are advised of his approach, push strongly out to meet and support him. With the aid of the Marine Brigade, and such convoy as Rosecrans will bring with his fleet, you need not have any difficulty in clearing out the line of Bear Creek to Tuscumbia, and should be able to draw supplies from his boats, so as to prevent lumbering yourselves with much train. You will telegraph at once as soon as you learn he is coming, and about what time you will start. As I propose to throw a strong cavalry force south under cover of your movement, I wish to time the two as nearly contemporaneous as possible.

You will take command of the movement from Corinth yourself, I suppose, leaving Brigadier-General Sweeney in Corinth, or send General Sweeney and hold Corinth yourself. In this particular, as in most others connected with your command, I leave you with a very large discretion, which you have long since earned the right to have reposed in you.

There is positively no certain news from below further than that General Grant has ordered down the regimental and headquarters transportation, which looks as if he expected to be on hard land again.

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*See Series I, VOL. XXIII, Part II, p. 215.

+Ibid., p. 223.

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