e a good commissary, and will keep as few provisions afloat as
possible. Yours, etc.,

W. T. SHERMAN, Brigadier-General commanding.

HEADQUARTERS SHERMAN'S DIVISION
Camp Shiloh, near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, April 2, 1862

Captain J. A. RAWLINS, Assistant Adjutant-General
to General GRANT.

SIR: In obedience to General Grant's instructions of March 31st,
with one section of Captain Muench's Minnesota Battery, two
twelve-pound howitzers, a detachment of Fifth Ohio Cavalry of one
hundred and fifty men, under Major Ricker, and two battalions of
infantry from the Fifty-seventh and Seventy-seventh Ohio, under the
command of Colonels Hildebrand and Mungen, I marched to the river,
and embarked on the steamers Empress and Tecumseh. The gunboat
Cairo did not arrive at Pittsburg, until after midnight, and at 6
p.m. Captain Bryant, commanding the gunboat, notified me that he
was ready to proceed up the river. I followed, keeping the
transports within about three hundred yards of the gunboat. About
1 p.m., the Cairo commenced shelling the battery above the mouth of
Indian Creek, but elicited no reply. She proceeded up the river
steadily and cautiously, followed close by the Tyler and Lexington,
all throwing shells at the points where, on former visits of the
gunboats, enemy's batteries were found. In this order all
followed, till it was demonstrated that all the enemy's batteries,
including that at Chickasaw, were abandoned.

I ordered the battalion of infantry under Colonel Hildebrand to
disembark at Eastport, and with the other battalion proceeded to
Chickasaw and landed. The battery at this point had evidently been
abandoned some time, and consisted of the remains of an old Indian
mound, partly washed away by the river, which had been fashioned
into a two-gun battery, with a small magazine. The ground to its
rear had evidently been overflowed during the late freshet, and led
to the removal of the guns to Eastport, where the batteries were on
high, elevated ground, accessible at all seasons from the country
to the rear.

Upon personal inspection, I attach little importance to Chickasaw
as a military position. The people, who had fled during the
approach of the gunboats, returned to the village, and said the
place had been occupied by one Tennessee regiment and a battery of
artillery from Pensacola. After remaining at Chickasaw some
hours, all the boats dropped back to Eastport, not more than a mile
b