J. C. Kelton to Orders, } Hpqrs. Dist. Of West Tennessee, July 3, 1862

Corinth, Miss., July 3, 1862.

Maj. Gen. U. S. GRANT, Comdg. District of West Tennessee, Memphis, Tenn. :

Other pressing business has prevented me from giving an earlier answer to your telegram of the 29th ultimo.

In asking you to report by whose negligence the train which was destroyed by the enemy had been sent over the road before it was properly guarded I made no insinuation that there had been the slightest

neglect on your part. Indeed, I supposed the whole thing had been done before you assumed the immediate command at Memphis. What I wanted to know were the facts of the case—who sent it out, and why it was exposed to destruction. This I directed you to investigate and report, and you take offense at the order, as intended to reflect upon you. Nor did I suppose for a moment that you were stampeded; for I know that is not in your nature; but I believed there was a stampede about the enemy threatening our line to Memphis with 30,000 men, and I now have good evidence that he did not have one-tenth of that number.

Again, you complain that troops belonging to your general command received orders direct from me while present with the army here. I shall, whenever occasion requires it, exercise the right of issuing orders direct to any detached command, or to any undetached command, if I deem it necessary. On moving your headquarters to Memphis, where there was only a very small part of the troops of this army, with communications difficult and precarious, you could hardly suppose that I would send orders, which required immediate execution, through you, who were more than a hundred miles away, when my direct orders would reach them in a few minutes. Moreover, I had information of the enemy which you could not possibly have had. I will further add that from your position at Memphis it is impossible for you to exercise the immediate command in this direction.

I must confess that I was very much surprised at the tone of your dispatch and the ill-feeling manifested in it, so contrary to your usual style, and especially toward one who has so often befriended you when you were attacked by others.

H. W. HALLEOK, Major-General.

LA GRANGE, July 3, 1862. Major-General MCCLERNAND:

General Sherman’s cavalry has reconnoitered toward Memphis, from Holly Springs, and reports that Jackson’s cavalry crossed the Memphis and Charleston Railroad in a southerly direction this morning.

M. D. LEGGETT, Colonel, Seventy-eighth Ohio.

CoRINTH, Jul – General ROSECRANS: Bilan The recall of Hamilton was under an order to immediately send troops to Washington. The rumor of McClellan’s defeat was afterward contradicted and the order suspended, but too late to countermand Hamilton’s return. Sherman’s command was ordered back for same reasons but he probably did not receive it. Send him this by the courier. I am waiting full report of Sheridan’s affair to send to Washington. H. W. HALLECK, Major-General.

SPECIAL FIELD (RDERS, } HpQrs. DEPARTMENT OF THE MIss., No. 140. Corinth, Miss., July 3, 1862. I. The commanding officer at Columbus is charged with guarding the railroad from that place to Humboldt, inclusive; the commandin g offiCuar. XXIX.) CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.—UNION.

cer at Jackson, from that place to Grand Junction and Bethel, inclusive; the commanding officer of Memphis, from that place to Grand Junction; the commanding officer at Corinth, to Bethel, Iuka, and south and west as far as the roads are opened, except where they come within the limits of other commands; and the commanding officer at Tuscumbia, from Decatur to Iuka, inclusive. Such officers will be under the general orders of their superiors in brigades, divisions, districts, and subdistricts.

Il. Military officers not assigned to special duty under the superintendent of the railroad are simply charged with the guarding of the roads and trains; in no case will they interfere with the running of the trains, which will be exclusively under the orders of the superintendent, his assistants, and employés. They, however, will furnish details of working parties, under their own officers, on requisition of the superintendent and his assistants, and such working parties will be under the general direction of the latter, so far as the work itself is concerned.

_ Il. Officers in command of railroad guards or of troops in their vicinity will be held responsible for any injury they may receive. All persons found injuring railroads or telegraph lines will be immediately shot down, and all expenses of repairing such injuries will be assessed upon persons having property or living in the vicinity. Particular care will be taken that our troops do not disturb water-tanks or switches, as serious accidents may result. In no case will any one be permitted to wash in the tanks or to draw off the water. To this end no soldier will be permitted on the track unless as a guard or marching under an officer.

IV. No person, unless traveling on military service, will be allowed a free pass. Military freight will always have the preference. The charges for passage and pr vate freights will until otherwise ordered be the same as fixed by former schedules over the same routes. All freight and passage money collected will be used and accounted for as railroad funds

By order of Major-General Halleck :

Assistant Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS, } Hpqrs. DIST. OF WEST TENNESSEE,

No. 60. Memphis, Tenn., July 3, 1862.

The system of guerrilla warfare now being prosecuted by some troops

organized under authority of the so-called Southern Confederacy, and

others without such authority, being so pernicious to the welfare of the

community where it is carried on, and it being within the power of communities to suppress this system, it is ordered that wherever loss is