whole northern part of Alabama is occupied by our forces they will again be of great use in transportation of stores upon the Tennessee above the impassable barrier of the Muscle Shoals.

Portable saw-mills were sent to Nashville, Bridgeport, Chattanooga, and other points; the ruined saw-mills of the country were repaired and set to work, and millions of feet of timber and lumber were manufactured from the forests of this mountain region.

With the timber and lumber thus manufactured, extensive, storehouse, bridges, and hospitals were constructed at Nashville, Bridgeport, Chattanooga, and other important points; and by the time the season permitted General Sherman to open the campaign the storehouse were filled, and in addition, immense stores of forage, grain, and hay were stacked under shelter of paulins, as provision against all wants.

To the energy, intelligence, and zeal of General Allen, at Louisville; Colonel Donaldson, at Nashville; Colonel Easton, at the headquarters in the field; Captain Arthur Edwards, in charge of construction and management of steamers on the Tennessee; Colonel L. B. Parsons, in charge of steam-boat transportation on the Western rivers, and Colonel D. C. McCallum, in charge of the 930 miles of military railways which it becaume necessary to repair and manage, the country owes a debt of gratitude for the brilliant success of the campaign resulting in the capture of Atlanta, and relieving the hearts of the people of the United States of all fears as to the final victory of our cause and re- establishment of our united country.

Three of these officers been forwarded by brevet promotion for their services. I respectfully recommend that the service of the others be likewise recognized.

General Sherman in his official report of the campaign makes Honorable reference to some of these officers whose efforts came most directly under his own eye.

The two campaigns of Chattanooga and of Atlanta were conducted amid difficulties from the great length of the line of communication, and the character of the disaffected or hostile country through which the armies had to be supplied, which have seldom if ever before been successfully overcome, and I refer to them at some length, because a considerable part of the work of the Quartermaster's Department passed under my own eye, and because the success attained in supplying the troops engaged in these campaigns gives assurance of the capacity of the department, as now organized, under able and zealous officers trained during the war, to supply the troops in any movement they are likely to be called upon to make in its future prosecution.

The following letter from the commanding general of the army before Atlanta bears testimony to the manner in which the duties of the Quartermaster's Department, in providing for the supply of his army, have been performed:

HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Near Chattahoochee, July 13, 1864.

It affords me pleasure at this time to bear testimony to the fact that my vast army, operating at a distance of 300 miles from Nashville, has been supplied in a manner to receive my most thorough satisfaction and approval. This in a great measure has resulted from the foresight of Colonel Donaldson at Nashville, and the intense and self-sacrificing industry of that officer. I will be rejoiced at any reward or promotion the Government may bestow upon him.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.