OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. [CHAP.XII.

sought him. He will take the office only for the sake of the cause. If agreeable to the Department, I should be glad to have that gentleman and Dr. Newman appointed as early as may be.

In a department so large it is impossible for the duties of the quartermaster and commissary to be performed by the same individual. In the Tennessee Army these duties are separated, and the service of both departments is very efficiency done.

I remain, respectfully, your obedient servant,

L. POLK, Major-General, Commanding Second Department.

P.S.-The Tennessee Army when turned over will leave behind them large amount of quartermaster, commissary, and medical stores. Would it not be well to have them all received by one Confederate official?

[For Polk to Walker July 23,1861, in reference to affairs in Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee, see Vol.III, of this series, p.612.]

RICHMOND, July 23,1861.

HonorableL.P. WALKER, Secretary of War:

SIR: I am requested by his excellency Isham G. Harris, governor, to ask at your hands full and specific instructions for the transfer of the Provisional Army of Tennessee to the Confederate States. The Tennessee troops and those of the Confederate States are not organized alike in all respects, and, consequently, in the transfer the organization of the former may be in some respects interfered with. The governor made such appointments in the general staff for the Tennessee Army (about 22,000 strong) as were deemed necessary for a force of that magnitude. These appointments embrace an adjutant-general, quartermaster-general, surgeon-general, inspector-general, and commissary-general, with suitable and proper number of assistants of each. In the transfer by regiments and battalions will those appointed be displaced or not? If displaced, the governor express the hope that, as an act of justice to the State and to the appointees, in supplying the force with necessary officers in this branch of the service, they be taken from Tennessee and from his appointees, if it can be the general line of policy of the appointing power, it will give great satisfaction to the State.

In order to prevent confusion, and to relieve the governor from embarrassment and the officers of the general staff from uncertainty, please state the effect of the transfer and the general rule to be observed as to this branch of the service. A large quantity of stores were collected for the subsistence of the Provisional Army of Tennessee, and the same in now and hand. They have been paid for, and constitute part of the war expenditures of the State. The transfer of the army makes it necessary to determine what shall be done with these stores. If they are to be turned over with the army, it is respectfully suggested that arrangements should be made for that purpose. Be kind enough to furnish instructions on this point.

The governor desires that steps be taken to have the debt incurred by the State for war purposes settled and provided for by the Confederate States, in accordance with the league between the two powers.