OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. [Chap.XII.

But I find myself digressing from the object of my letter, which was to suggest the importance of a large force for a winter campaign in Kentucky; to ask that the Tennessee troops be sent from Western Virginia, or a part of them, if it can be done with safety, and to appeal for arms for the 30,000 men now being raised here. The interest and anxiety which I feel for the success of our cause and the safety of Tennessee, which I regard as now seriously threatened with invasion, must be my apology for the length of this communication and the freedom of my suggestions. Feeling the highest assurance that your excellency will do all that is possible to prevent such a calamity, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, yours, & c.,

ISHAM G. HARRIS.

BOWLING GREEN, KY., October 15, 1861.

General A. SIDNEY JOHNSTON: SIR: The anomalous condition of Kentucky, in the civil war now raging in the States formerly composing the Federal Union, induces me to hope that you will use the power of your position for the mitigation of the necessary evils of such a condition. At present a large portion of the people of Kentucky have neither the protection of State, Federal, nor Confederate law. The people, by large majorities, maintained at the polls the position of neutrality and peace; whilst the legislature, repudiating the only doctrine it dared to assert before the election, have plunged the State into war. Large majorities of the people have always been and now are in favor of a permanent connection with the South, whilst the legislature, urged by an insatiable ambition and party spirit, have forced her into an unnatural connection with the North, the most unnecessary, foolish, and criminal act, in our opinion, ever perpetrated.

Whilst the people have thus maintained a position of neutrality, the Federal Government have directed against them, in common with their Southern brethren, an organized system of unconstitutional aggression against their domestic peace and slave property. In this condition, a factious majority of the legislature of Kentucky, in defiance of every pledge, and against the repeated vetoes of the governor, and fearing the universal indignation of their constituents, determined to surround themselves with an army, sworn, officered and paid by Lincoln, and have pursued their political opponents with the fell vengeance of edicts (which they call laws) - edicts at once unprecedented, unconstitutional, and atrocious. Thus pursued, subjugated, and betrayed by armies and legislatures, by Federal and State law, they receive no protection from Confederate law, because as yet they constitute no part of the Confederate States.

Under these circumstances, we ask of you such protection as you can extend (consistently with your position) to our trade, our property, our liberty, and our lives.

1st. The people have been forbidden by the acts of the Federal Congress and the embargoes of Lincoln their usual free trade with the Southern Confederacy. The Federal Government contend that this power of restriction on trade is an incident of the war-making powers of Congress, and one of the principal means possessed by the Federal Government of successfully assailing the South. If this be true, it is certainly within the powers possessed by a commander of Confederate armies to remove a restriction imposed by their enemy for the purpose of injuring the Confederate States. The advantages of a free and unre-