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." The time set for our arrival at Meridian, the 10th of February, had arrived before it was possible for me, under your orders, to move from Memphis, and I would have been entirely justifiable if I had not started at all.