All this time battalion and brigade drills were enforced, so that, when the season approached for active operations farther south, I had my division in the best possible order, and about the 1st of November it was composed as follows: 

First Brigade, Brigadier-General M. L. Smith—­Eighth Missouri, Colonel G. A. Smith; Sixth Missouri, Colonel Peter E. Bland; One Hundred and Thirteenth Illinois, Colonel George B. Hoge; Fifty-fourth Ohio, Colonel T. Kilby Smith; One Hundred and Twentieth Illinois, Colonel G. W. McKeaig.

Second Brigade, Colonel John Adair McDOWELL.—­Sixth Iowa, Lieutenant-Colonel John M. Corse; Fortieth Illinois, Colonel J. W.
Booth; Forty-sixth Ohio, Colonel O. C. Walcutt; Thirteenth United
States Infantry, First Battalion, Major D. Chase.

Third Brigade, Brigadier-General J. W. Denver.—­Forty-eighth Ohio,
Colonel P. J. Sullivan; Fifty-third Ohio, Colonel W. S. Jones;
Seventieth Ohio, Colonel J. R. Cockerill.

Fourth Brigade, Colonel David Stuart.—­Fifty-fifth Illinois,
Colonel O. Malmburg; Fifty-seventh Ohio, Colonel W. Mungen;
Eighty-third Indiana, Colonel B. Spooner; One Hundred and Sixteenth Illinois, Colonel Tupper; One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Illinois, Lieutenant-Colonel Eldridge.

Fifth Brigade, Colonel R. P. Buckland.—­Seventy-second Ohio, Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. C. Loudon; Thirty-second Wisconsin, Colonel J. W. Howe; Ninety-third Indiana, Colonel Thomas; Ninety-third Illinois, Major J. M. Fisher.

Subsequently, Brigadier-General J. G. Lauman arrived at Memphis, and I made up a sixth brigade, and organized these six brigades into three divisions, under Brigadier-Generals M. L. Smith, J. W. Denver, and J. G. Lauman.

About the 17th of November I received an order from General Grant, dated: 

Lagrange, November 16, 1862.

Meet me at Columbus, Kentucky, on Thursday next.  If you have a good map of the country south of you, take it up with you.

U. S. Grant, Major-General.

I started forthwith by boat, and met General Grant, who had reached Columbus by the railroad from Jackson, Tennessee.  He explained to me that he proposed to move against Pemberton, then intrenched on a line behind the Tallahatchie River below Holly Springs; that he would move on Holly Springs and Abberville, from Grand Junction; that McPherson, with the troops at Corinth, would aim to make junction with him at Holly Springs; and that he wanted me to leave in Memphis a proper garrison, and to aim for the Tallahatchie, so as to come up on his right by a certain date.  He further said that his ultimate object was to capture Vicksburg, to open the navigation of the Mississippi River, and that General Halleck had authorized him to call on the troops in the Department of Arkansas, then commanded by General S. R. Curtis, for cooperation.  I suggested to him that if he would request General