CHAP.XII.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. - CONFEDERATE.

RICHMOND, August 24,1861.

General POLK, Memphis, Tenn.:

The ten companies of cavalry ordered to report to you from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana were intended for General Hardee. Will you not order them forward with one of the Louisiana infantry regiments ordered to report to you?

L.P. WALKER.

GENERAL ORDERS, } BRIGADE HEADQUARTERS, No.11. Knoxville, Tenn., August 26,1861.

SIR: I have ordered you to move with your command, and encamp at Fish Springs, near the Johnson County line, because of the great disaffection, as reported to me, among the inhabitants of that county, and of Carter, adjoining, and in order that any efforts at rebellion against the authorities of the State or Confederacy may be quelled at once. I have information from various sources that a number of loyal citizens from those counties, apprehending danger at the hands of the Federalists among them, who seem to be largely in the ascendancy, have fled for safety to Virginia and North Carolina. I also learned to-day that two men were killed and others wounded recently by these Lincolnites. You will try and ascertain the facts in the case and report to me. You will report to headquarters as often as convenient, or as circumstances may require, the condition of affairs in those counties.

I desire you as much as possible to be conciliatory towards these people, adhering strictly to the policy indicated in my proclamation and in General Orders, No.3. You will enjoin upon your men a scrupulous observance of the rights of persons and of property, and all peaceable and law-abiding citizens. You will disarm and disperse all bodies of men in open hostility to the authorities of the State and of the Confederate States; capture and hold their leaders, and if resistance is offered, and it becomes necessary, destroy them. The following are the names of some of the Lincoln leaders in Johnson County, viz: Lewis Venable, of Laurel Creek; Northington, hotel-keeper at Taylorsville; R.R. Butler, Taylorsville, representative of the county; John G. Johnson and J.W. Merick, captains of Lincoln companies. Joseph P. Edoms, of Elizabethton, Carter County, and A. Evans, of Washington County, are also among the ringleaders of them. If you obtain satisfactory evidence that these or other leaders are in open hostility to the authorities of the State or the Confederacy, or stirring up rebellion against the same, you will arrest and detain them in custody. I will forward to your aid, for scouting purposes, a cavalry company so soon as I can arm them, if you think their services are required.

By order of Brigadier General F.K. Zollicoffer:

P.B. LEE, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Colonel W.E. BALDWIN, Russellville, Tenn.

KNOXVILLE, TENN., August 26,1861.

HonorableA.T. BLEDSOE, Bureau of War, Richmond, Va.:

DEAR SIR: Please to excuse the bluntness of my telegram of this date and also of my letter. As I was going to the depot to forward a letter to the Commissary-General I learned that parties here who seem to cherish the existing feud between Feds. and Confeds. were about to apply to the Department to authorize the formation of a battalion of