WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, May 9, 1861.

Colonel FRANK P. BLAIR, Jr., Saint Louis:

DEAR SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 4th instant, containing your requisitions on the Ordnance Bureau and the Quartermaster-General, and have referred those requisitions to the proper bureaus for their action and reply, from each of which you will hear on the subject.

The aggregate of the quota of militia called out from Missouri under the first proclamation of the President is 3,123 men. To arm and equip that number orders have already been issued to the United States mustering officers to make requisitions from the arsenals at Saint Louis and Pittsburgh. So also camp and garrison equipage have already been ordered to be furnished for that number of men. Fatigue clothing of the description now given to volunteers in the service here can be provided in a short time if desired, or, at all events, as soon as the troops in this city and those under the command of Generals Paterson and Butler are supplied. In New York and Pennsylvania their troops have either furnished themselves or been furnished, relying for reimbursement of the expenditure hereafter by the General Government.

Very respectfully,

SIMON CAMERON,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, May 9, 1861.

Honorable ERASMUS CORNING, Albany:

DEAR SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of May 1, and beg to express to you the thanks of this Department for its valuable suggestions. I trust you will make free at all times in communicating any information important for this Department to know.

I have referred your letter to General Scott for his perusal and consideration, and the subject to which it refers is receiving due consideration.

I am, sir, very respectfully,

SIMON CAMERON,

Secretary of War.

CONFEDERATE CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.

U. S. SENATE, Washington, February 7, 1861.

His Excellency H. M. RECTOR, Little Rock, Ark.:

The motives which impelled capture of forts other States do not exist in ours. It is all premature. We implore you prevent attack on arsenal if Totten resists.

R. W. JOHNSON.

W. K. SEBASTIAN.

WASHINGTON, February 7, 1861.

R. H. JOHNSON, JAMES B. JOHNSON, Little Rock:

Southern States which captured first were in the act of seeding, were threatened with troops, and their ports and commerce endangered. Not