Today in History:

695 Series I Volume III- Serial 3 - Wilson's Creek

Page 695 Chapter X. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.

seems to be the case. From intelligence received to-day from Fort Smith this has been induced by the advice of General N. B. Pearce, whose conduct deserves the severest reprehension. I understand he is an applicant for promotion by Confederate appointment, against which I protest solemnly, until his conduct can be investigated by the authorities here. All will be done here that is possible to take are of McCulloch. All things look portentous now.

H. M. RECTOR.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

Little Rock, Ark., September 4, 1861.

Honorable L. P. WALKER, Secretary of War, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: In view of the extensive preparations on foot by the lincoln Government, I conceive it important that the 3,000 men called for from Arkansas by your requisition of June 24 should be raised and prepared for service with as little delay as possible. Considering that one-third of our men are already under arms, and that recruiting officers are being sent through the State from the respective divisions of the Army, together with the objections generally urgent against enlisting for the war, I am confident that several months will elapse before the number called for will be obtained under the present plan.

I am in receipt of letter daily from parties who signify a willingness to accept the service, but there are difficulties in the way. First, it is impossible to get up a full company in any one county or locality, the men being only procurable in squads of five, ten, or twenty. After being thus obtained they require subsistence, with authority given to mustering officers to swear them in and control them until the whole can be got together. Again, after the company is organized, perhaps remote from the camp of instruction, transportation is necessary to covey them to the proper point.

All these obstacles are retarding progress in furnishing the men you desire, and I am anxious to have them obtained, if possible, that Arkansas may respond promptly to the call made upon her. We have the men, if they can be aggregated.

I beg leave to renew earnestly, therefore, the suggestions contained in the communication directed to be addressed to you from Edmund Burgevin, adjutant-general of this State, and regard the matter of so much importance to the public service as to render it proper that General Burgevin should proceed to Richmond and ask your attention to the subject at once, hoping that you will either consent to send recruiting officers with proper instructions, or that gentlemen be named in the State authorized to get up the regiments on their own account, with the promise of a command in the organization when complete. If the latter plan is adapted, and I am inclined to think it the best, I know of no man in Arkansas whose qualifications would commend him so highly as colonel of one of the regiments as the gentleman who presents this communication.

The general, until recently, has been actively engaged in State service as adjutant-general, and I hazard nothing in saying he has peculiar adaptation and qualifications for the position to which I recommend him. Besides this, in connection with my own efforts, he rendered valuable service to the Southern cause while Arkansas was wavering in the balance between the old and new Governments. Without the general's labors and perils, coupled with my own, the forts and arsenal


Page 695 Chapter X. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.