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

HALL OF CONGRESS, August 27.

The accompanying letters are submitted for the consideration of the War Department and the President. Mr. Tate, I am aware, is well known to his excellency, as well as to the Department. Mr. Topp may also be well known to them. If not, I may say that he is one of the most prominent citizens of Memphis, and a gentleman of deservedly high social and political position.

I may be allowed to add that the letters herewith inclosed are but specimens of others of similar purport which I receive almost daily from Memphis, and hence are most respectfully submitted.

DAVID M. CURRIN.

[Inclosure.]

MEMPHIS, August 20,1861.

HonorableD.M. CURRIN:

DEAR SIR: I trust you will not consider it out of place if I make you a few suggestions.

The brigades and divisions under McCulloch and Price, Hardee, Pillow, Jeff. Thompson, and others seem to be concentrating towards Saint Louis. In the mean time Fremont is using extraordinary exertions and concentrating all the forces at his disposal upon the defense of Saint Louis. As proof of this, Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, has been evacuated, and but 2,000 troops are at Cairo. To an outsider Saint Louis is the stake that is to be played for.

Whether Missouri is to fall into the hands of the Abolitionists or with the South is the question. That being the case, it has occurred to me, as the preachers would say, that now is the accepted time. If Missouri is to be helped, now is the time. A day or an hour may turn the scale. The troops that are there are badly armed and equipped, and sadly in want of the conveniences necessary to an army. The most of them are green and have had little or no training. This applies particularly to the Missourians and Arkansans that are hourly flocking to our standard.

I pretend not to know anything of the contemplated movements of the President eastward. As I came from Richmond a few days since I met on the entire road from Richmond to Memphis a vast number of soldiers. I learn that companies from Mississippi, Louisiana, and elsewhere arriving here are sent on eastward. It occurs to me that the true policy would be, in view of the great stake we are playing for in Missouri, to turn all the forces now organized in Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and elsewhere upon Missouri, so that we could throw an overpowering force upon Missouri and crush out abolitionism in Missouri, and thereby break up their contemplated movement on the South in the fall. Would it not be well to see President Davis and mention these matters to him? Whatever is done should be done instantly.

Since writing this Colonel Carroll has come in, just from East Tennessee; says he can raise any amount of troops in East Tennessee if they could be provisioned whilst being organized. Would it not be well for the President to give him the command of a brigade if he can raise them, as he says he can, in thirty days?

I throw out these suggestions for your reflection. I learn that the volunteers in Arkansas are looking with intense interest to the arrival of A. Sidney Johnston, with the hope that he will have command of all the troops in Missouri. They say they want a man of experience.