orders.  We started back by the most direct route, reached Memphis by noon of December 12th, and began immediately the preparations for the Vicksburg movement.  There I found two irregular divisions which had arrived at Memphis in my absence, commanded respectively by Brigadier-General A. J. Smith and Brigadier-General George W. Morgan.  These were designated the First and Third Divisions, leaving the Second Division of Morgan Z. Smith to retain its original name and number.

I also sent orders, in the name of General Grant, to General Gorman, who meantime had replaced General Steele in command of Helena, in lieu of the troops which had been east of the Mississippi and had returned, to make up a strong division to report to me on my way down.  This division was accordingly organized, and was commanded by Brigadier-General Frederick Steele, constituting my Fourth Division.

Meantime a large fleet of steamboats was assembling from St. Louis and Cairo, and Admiral Porter dropped down to Memphis with his whole gunboat fleet, ready to cooperate in the movement.  The preparations were necessarily hasty in the extreme, but this was the essence of the whole plan, viz., to reach Vicksburg as it were by surprise, while General Grant held in check Pemberton’s army about Grenada, leaving me to contend only with the smaller garrison of Vicksburg and its well-known strong batteries and defenses.  On the 19th the Memphis troops were embarked, and steamed down to Helena, where on the 21st General Steele’s division was also embarked; and on the 22d we were all rendezvoused at Friar’s Point, in the following order, viz.: 

Steamer Forest Queen, general headquarters, and battalion Thirteenth United States Infantry.

First Division, Brigadier-General A. J. Smith.—­Steamers Des Arc, division headquarters and escort; Metropolitan, Sixth Indiana; J. H. Dickey, Twenty-third Wisconsin; J. C. Snow, Sixteenth Indiana; Hiawatha, Ninety-sixth Ohio; J. S. Pringle, Sixty-seventh Indiana; J. W. Cheeseman, Ninth Kentucky; R. Campbell, Ninety-seventh Indiana; Duke of Argyle, Seventy-seventh Illinois; City of Alton, One Hundred and Eighth and Forty-eighth Ohio; City of Louisiana, Mercantile Battery; Ohio Belle, Seventeenth Ohio Battery; Citizen, Eighty-third Ohio; Champion, commissary-boat; General Anderson, Ordnance.

Second Division,, Brigadier-General M. L. Smith.—­Steamers
Chancellor, headquarters, and Thielman’s cavalry; Planet, One
Hundred and Sixteenth Illinois; City of Memphis, Batteries A and B
(Missouri Artillery), Eighth Missouri, and section of Parrott guns;
Omaha, Fifty-seventh Ohio; Sioux City, Eighty-third Indiana; Spread
Eagle, One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Illinois; Ed. Walsh, One
Hundred and Thirteenth Illinois; Westmoreland, Fifty-fifth
Illinois, headquarters Fourth Brigade; Sunny South, Fifty-fourth
Ohio; Universe, Sixth Missouri; Robert Allen, commissary-boat.