CONFEDERATE CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.

Extract from the Executive Journal of the State of Virginia.

APRIL 18, 1861.

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The following order was issued, through the adjutant-general, to Major General William b. Taliaferro:

You will forthwith take command of the State troops which are now or may be assembled at the city of Norfolk. You immediate presence there is necessary.

The governor appointed and commissioned the following officers for the State Navy:

Robert B. Pegram, captain, to rank as such from 18th of April, 1861.

Georg T. Sinclair, captain, to rank as such from 19th of April, 1861.

Catesby Ap R. Jones, captain, to rank as such from 20th of April, 1861.

James H. Rochelle, lieutenant, to rank as such from the 18th of April, 1861.

The following order was issued to Captain Robert B. Pegram:

SIR: You will proceed to Norfolk and there assume command of the naval station, with authority to organize naval defenses, enroll and enlist seamen and marines, and temporarily to appoint warrant officers, and do and perform whatever may be necessary to preserve and protect the property of the commonwealth and of the citizens of Virginia.

Co-operate with the land forces under the command of Major General William B. Taliaferro, and report all important acts which may be done or performed under your orders promptly to the executive, through the general in command.

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JOHN LETCHER.

PETERSBURG, April 20, 1861.

L. P. WALKER:

Governor Letcher has stopped three steamers on James River, and may stop two more. They can put seven thousand men in Baltimore in twenty-four hours from here by our connections with the railroads from Lynchburg to Dalton. We can carry from five to seven thousand men daily at the rate of three hundred and fifty miles per day. Georgia cars can be run through without unloading. The South Side Railroad is at the service of the Confederate States.

H. D. BIRD,

Superintendent.

PETERSBURG, VA., April 20, 1861.

L. P. WALKER:

Colonel Owen, president of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, has just reached here from Baltimore by way of Norfolk. He witnessed the butchery of Baltimore citizens by the Massachusetts regiment yesterday. He states the city is in arms and all are Southern men now. He says bridges north of Baltimore bee burned, and no more troops can come from the North unless they march, and in large bodies, as Maryland is rising. Lincoln is in a trap. He has not more than twelve hundred regulars in Washington and not more than three thousand volunteers. We have three thousand in Harper's Ferry. Our boys, number-