All the troops that can possibly be spared in West Tennessee and on the Mississippi River should be sent without delay to assist General Rosecrans on the Tennessee River.

Urge Sherman to act with all possible promptness.

If you have boats, send them down to bring up his troops.

Information just received indicates that a part of Lee’s army has been sent to reenforce Bragg.

H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief.

Washington, September 19, 1868—­4 p.m.

Major-General S. A. Hurlbut, Memphis, Tennessee: 

Give me definite information of the number of troops sent toward Decatur, and where they are.  Also, what other troops are to follow, and when.

Has any thing been heard from the troops ordered from Vicksburg?

No efforts must be spared to support Rosecrans’s right, and to guard the crossings of the Tennessee River.

H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief.

My special orders were to repair the Memphis & Charleston Railroad eastward as I progressed, as far as Athens, Alabama, to draw supplies by that route, so that, on reaching Athens, we should not be dependent on the roads back to Nashville, already overtaxed by the demand of Rosecrans’s army.

On reaching Memphis, October 2d, I found that Osterhaus’s division had already gone by rail as far as Corinth, and than John E. Smith’s division was in the act of starting by cars.  The Second Division, then commanded by Brigadier-General Giles A. Smith, reached Memphis at the same time with me; and the Fourth Division, commanded by Brigadier-General John M. Corse, arrived a day or two after.  The railroad was in fair condition as far as Corinth, ninety-six miles, but the road was badly stocked with locomotives and cars, so that it took until the 9th to get off the Second Division, when I gave orders for the Fourth Division and wagon-trains to march by the common road.

On Sunday morning, October 11th, with a special train loaded with our orderlies and clerks, the horses of our staff, the battalion of the Thirteenth United States Regulars, and a few officers going forward to join their commands, among them Brigadier-General Hugh Ewing, I started for Corinth.

At Germantown, eight miles, we passed Corse’s division (Fourth) on the march, and about noon the train ran by the depot at Colliersville, twenty-six miles out.  I was in the rear car with my staff, dozing, but observed the train slacking speed and stopping about half a mile beyond the depot.  I noticed some soldiers running to and fro, got out at the end of the car, and soon Colonel Anthony (Silty-sixth Indiana), who commanded the post, rode up and said that his pickets had just been driven in, and there was an appearance of an attack by a large force of cavalry coming from the southeast.  I ordered the men to get off the train, to form on the knoll near the railroad-cut, and soon observed a rebel officer