W. T. SHERMAN, Mayor-General, commanding.

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, January 27, 1864.

Brigadier-General J. P. HATCH, in charge of Cavalry Bureau, St.
Louis, Missouri.

SIR:  Your favor of the 21st inst. is just received.  Up to the present time eight hundred and eighteen horses have arrived here since Captain Hudson’s visit to St. Louis.  I wrote you upon his return several days ago that it would not be necessary to divert shipments to this point which could not reach us before February 1st.  We shall certainly get off on our contemplated expedition before that time.  The number of horses estimated for in this department by its chief quartermaster was two thousand, and this number, including those already sent, will, I think, completely mount all the dismounted cavalry of this department.  Recruits for cavalry regiments are arriving freely, and this will swell our requisitions for a couple of months to come.  I will as far as possible procure horses from the regions of country traversed by our cavalry.

Yours truly, W. SOOY SMITH, Brigadier-General,

Chief of Cavalry, Military Division of the Mississippi.

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, January 28, 1864

Brigadier-General GEORGE CROOK, commanding Second Cavalry Division,
Huntsville, Alabama.

I start in about three days with seven, thousand men to Meridian via Pontotoc.  Demonstrate on Decatur, to hold Roddy.

W. SOOY SMITH, Brigadier-General,
Chief of Cavalry, Military Division of the Mississippi.

MAYWOOD, ILLINOIS, July 9,1875
General W. T. SHERMAN, Commander-in-Chief, United States Army.

SIR:  Your letter of July 7th is just received.

Your entire statement in the “Memoirs” concerning my part in the
Meridian campaign is incorrect.

You overstate my strength, placing it at seven thousand effective, when it was but six.  The nominal strength of my command was seven thousand.

You understate the strength of my enemy, putting Forrest’s force at four thousand.  On our return to Nashville, you stated it, in General Grant’s presence, to have been but twenty-five hundred.  Before and during my movement I positively knew Forrest’s strength to be full six thousand, and he has since told me so himself.

Instead of delaying from the 1st to the 11th of February for “some regiment that was ice-bound near Columbus, Kentucky,” it was an entire brigade, Colonel Waring’s, without which your orders to me were peremptory not to move.  I asked you if I should wait its arrival, and you answered:  “Certainly; if you go without it, you will be, too weak, and I want you strong enough to go where you please.”