[Special Field Orders, No. 11.]

Headquarters department of the Tennessee
Memphis, January 27, 1864

V. The expedition is one of celerity, and all things must tend to that.  Corps commanders and staff-officers will see that our movements are not encumbered by wheeled vehicles improperly loaded.  Not a tent, from the commander-in-chief down, will be carried.  The sick will be left behind, and the surgeons can find houses and sheds for all hospital purposes.

VI.  All the cavalry in this department is placed under the orders and command of Brigadier-General W. S. Smith, who will receive special instructions.

By order of Major-General W. T. Sherman

L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp.

Note.-That same evening I started in a steamboat for Vicksburg. 
W. T. S.
St. Louis, 1885.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE MEMPHIS, January 27, 1864

Brigadier-General W. S. Smith, commanding Cavalry, etc., present.

Dear general:  By an order issued this day I have placed all the cavalry of this department subject to your command.  I estimate you can make a force of full seven thousand men, which I believe to be superior and better in all respects than the combined cavalry which the enemy has in all the State of Mississippi.  I will in person start for Vicksburg to-day, and with four divisions of infantry, artillery, and cavalry move out for Jackson, Brandon, and Meridian, aiming to reach the latter place by February 10th.  General Banks will feign on Pascagoula and General Logan on Rome.  I want you with your cavalry to move from Colliersville on Pontotoc and Okolona; thence sweeping down near the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, disable that road as much as possible, consume or destroy the resources of the enemy along that road, break up the connection with Columbus, Mississippi, and finally reach me at or near Meridian as near the date I have mentioned as possible.  This will call for great energy of action on your part, but I believe you are equal to it, and you have the best and most experienced troops in the service, and they will do anything that is possible.  General Grierson is with you, and is familiar with the whole country.  I will send up from Haines’s Bluff an expedition of gunboats and transports combined, to feel up the Yazoo as far as the present water will permit.  This will disconcert the enemy.  My movement on Jackson will also divide the enemy, so that by no combination can he reach you with but a part of his force.  I wish you to attack any force of cavalry you meet and follow them southward, but in no event be drawn into the forks of the streams that make up the Yazoo nor over into Alabama.  Do not let the enemy draw you into minor affairs, but look solely to the greater object to destroy his communication