and by-roads which horsemen use, but they are rarely if ever used by wagons. Of these two roads Numbers 1 is the best; in ordinary weather a good road, but in wet weather the bottom lands on each side of the small streams are almost impassable. Streams are fordable with good gravelly bottoms. As a rule, grazing is good and well watered; no forage. It is generally known by the name of the Line road.

Road Numbers 2 is longer and rougher, less traveled than Numbers 1; not so much grass as on Numbers 1; well watered; some forage around Mount Ida and south of that point.

Road Numbers 3, which is the most traveled from Dardanelle to Paraclifta, passes through Cedar Glades, where a small quantity of forage may be obtained. Grass and water along the route, the first enough for small parties, the latter for any force.

Road Numbers 4, from Dardanelle, joins Numbers 2 at Mount Ida, and the remarks about Numbers 2 apply to this one. It is a shorter road than Numbers 3, but less traveled.

Numbers 5, from Lewisburg, joins Numbers 3 at Cedar Glades. From Cedar Glades down the remarks on Numbers 3 are made. From Lewisburg to Cedar Glades the road is mountainous and barren. It would be better to move from Dardanelle by way of river than to cross over at Lewisburg and across the mountains to Cedar Glades.

So far this information has been obtained mostly from Arkansas who are in, or have been in, our service, and who have traveled over the roads mentioned.

Routes Numbers 6, 7, and 8 have been traveled over by our forces for a considerable distance, and I have complete itineraries of them as far as traveled.

Numbers 6 is the old stage road, and known as the military road. On this road we cross Rocky Creek, Brodie's Creek, Fourche Bayou, Hurricane Creek, Saline River, Ten-Mile Creek, Washita River, Blakely Creek, De Lile Creek, Bayou Roche, Caddo Creek, Stroud's Creek, Terre Noire Creek, Antoine Creek, and Little Missouri. All these streams rise rapidly, and at the present time most of them would have to be bridged. The bottom lands which border these streams are impassable for artillery in wet weather without corduroying. This is the route pursued by Major-General Steele in March, 1864, as far as the Antoine Creek, when he burned off due south and crossed the Little Missouri river at Elkins' Ferry.

Numbers 7 goes through Princeton and by the way of Camden.

Numbers 8 joins Numbers 7 at Camden and, besides many small streams, with bad and steep crossings, crosses the Saline and Moro Creek. Both of these are well known as the worst streams in the State, both from the quickness with which they rise and overflow their banks and from the great width of the bottom lands, which after a rain become perfect quagmires.

If a movement be made from this line and from these points indicated, I deem it an absolute necessity that forage and subsistence be furnished and carried to Paraclifta.

Commencing at Fort Smith and going south as far as Ultima Thule, then east to Murfreesborough, then southeast to Camden, and thence east to the Mississippi River, we form a belt of country in the State of Arkansas over which our moving columns must pass if they use any of the roads I have given. The occupation of Waldron by our forces and scouting parties from this point toward the south, scouting parties from Dardanelle toward Mount Ida, the march of the Frontier Division in March, 1864, from Fort Smith, via Charleston, Danville, Hot Springs,