MONTGOMERY, April 26, 1861.

Colonel HENRY E. MCCULLOCH, San Antonio, Tex.:

You have the consent of the Department to pursue the course indicated in your letter of the 17th. Hold them as prisoners of war.

L. P. WALKER.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Montgomery, April 27, 1861.

His Excellency EDWARD CLARK, Governor of Texas, &c., Austin:

SIR: The letter of your excellency addressed to the President, and bearing date 17th April, has been referred for answer to this Department. It gives me pleasure to inform you that tan officer has been already sent to Indianola with instructions to make examination into the necessary defenses at that point. Colonel Van Dorn will be also instructed in relation tot he feasibility of removing the guns from Fort Clark adverted to by you. The moneys of the United States surrendered by Major Rhett, at your command, can be paid over to Major Maclin, of the Confederate service, with instruction to hold for further orders. Before this reaches you General Rogers will, doubtless, have you my reply to the subject of his agency.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

L. P. WALKER,

Secretary of War.

CORPUS CHRISTI, NUECES COUNTY, TEXAS,

April 28, 1861.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Southern Confederacy:

DEAR SIR: At a large meeting held in this city on the 27th instant, the undersigned were appointed a committee on the public safety, thereby being invested with full power and authority to provide means, adopt measures, and to do all things necessary to secure protection for the citizens of this place and its immediate vicinity. Our exposed position must be apparent to every one. The city of Corpus Christi being situated on the seaboard, accessible from the ocean by two passes, neither of which have any fortifications or other military defense, are liable at any time to be entered by the enemy, while on our rear we are exposed to Indian depredations, besides being threatened with another predatory war by Cotinas. The people here are all united in the great cause of the South. Since the first gun was fires at Fort Sumter, differences of opinion in this city have ceased to exist. Our citizens are all united, and are determined to resist Northern aggressions at all hazards. We are all ready and willing to fight and defend ourselves; but we are destitute of arms and munitions of war. Under these circumstances the undersigned, composing the committed on public safety, have been instructed by the meeting to communicate to the President of the Confederate States our exposed and defenseless condition, and to solicit at the same time such aid in arms and monitions of war as will be necessary to enable us to protect ourselves until such time as peace may be restored or other military defenses established by the Government. Our citizens are now enrolling themselves into three military companies, viz, artillery, infantry, and cavalry. Now, to