HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF MEMPHIS,
Memphis, October 18, 1862.

Major General SAMUEL R. CURTIS,

Commanding Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis.

DEAR GENERAL: Your letter inclosing two of General Hindman was received yesterday, and I was on the point of sending them by a flag of truce to Little Rock when I received a letter from General Carr saying he had received letter from General Holmes, at Little Rock, inquiring about your answer to Hindman's letters, and saying he would exchange all the prisoners in his hands and send them to you at Saint Louis; also asking that your answer to that communication be sent via Helana. Doubtless it is best to send the flag from that point, as the bearer would pass through the country that General Carr thinks is occupied by Confederate forces. I am perfectly willing to extend all possible help to all points, but I think Carr's force is larger than mine, and that this point it one of more importance to secure. The operations of guerrilla parties on the river have been resumed, and it may be that detachments have come over from White or Saint Francis Rivers. We must devise some remedy for this. It is generally useless to send parties to the very point of attack, as after firing on a boat they generally shift their ground. I will expel every secession family from Memphis if this mode of warfare is to be continued, and will moreover land troops on unexpected points and devastate the country into the interior. If we confine the punishment to the exact points of attack we will involve our own friends and not reach the guilty parties. But it must be stopped, and I may have to touch on your side of the river, in which case Hindman and Holmes may threaten vengeance. But how they can talk about barbarous warfare when their partisans and adherents fire on unarmed boats with women and children on board I cannot imagine. Thus the Continental, Dickey and Catahoula were all boats engaged exclusively in private business, in no way connected with the Government h case will be followed by the expulsion of ten secession families from this city of which I gave timely notice; for it is not fair that the very boats which carry supplies to their families should be fired on by their own husbands and brothers. I have sent an expedition to Island 21, and shall send another down to the second bend below Memphis, and my order may involve the destruction of some houses and corn-fields on the Arkansas side. In each case boats have been fired on from those points. There has been no firing of late from the east side.

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS, New Berne, N. C., October 18, 1862.

Brigadier General J. G. MARTIN,
Commanding District of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C.

GENERAL: By flag of truce four ladies and two children have arrived and their wishes will be attended to.

In regard to the Fort Macon prisoners I would say Major Hoffman was correct in his interpretation of my views and which I now repeat.

Such prisoners as requested permission to and did take the oath of allegiance to the United States Government we will retain within our lines, thereby gaining a citizens and losing a soldier.