[CHAP.XII. OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE.

HDQRS. DIVISION Numbers 1, WESTERN DEPARTMENT,

Columbus, October 15, 1861.

General JOHNSTON, Commanding Western Department:

GENERAL: In reply to yours of 12th, I have to say that I have to-day ordered a battery of six guns (two howitzers, one Parrott, and three iron guns) to be supplied to General Zollicoffer at Knoxville. The company to man it I have yet to get up, though it is in process of forming and will be ready in a few days. They shall go forward at the first moment after they are ready. I have a call for two batteries from Missouri for General Price, which I shall be able to supply also in a few days. Thornoton's Mississippi Regiment, from Union City, will follow the last of General Hardee's command, which leaves to-day, immediately. I regret I have not guns of the size required by General Buckner to send him for his work at Bowling Green. Harper's battery has gone forward to Clarksville, and is subject to your order, if not now wanted on the Cumberland River. I have ordered 24-pounders, 18-pounders and 12-pounders, the sizes General Buckner wants, to be prepared as soon as may be, at Nashville and at Memphis.

My work here is rapidly drawing to a close of the fort, and transportation is arriving in such quantities as to leave the powder difficulty to be the only one left.

Respectfully, your obedient servant.

L. POLK, Major-General, Commanding.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A., Richmond, October 16, 1861.

General A. SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Bowling Green, Ky.:

SIR: My occupation have been os engrossing that I have delayed, some days longer than I desired, addressing you on various matters connected with your command.

1. I telegraphed you two or three days ago on the subject of the supplies at Nashville. Those supplies were collected for the army in Virginia, and have been delayed on account of the embarrassments in transportation on the railroad. The supplies in this part of the country are becoming exhausted, while in Kentucky you have a rich and fertile State, amply able to feed your army. I desire very much that you should refrain from drawing from the stores at Nashville, and that your commissariat be furnished by purchases in Kentucky, for which purpose founds will be forwarded in ample amount and sufficient time to your commissary staff. I hope you will to the utmost of your power co-operate with this Department in this matter.

2. Your call for troops on Mississippi and other States will, I am afraid, produce embarrassment. When General Polk was sent to take command of the department now under your orders, he was instructed that he might use his own discretion in the calls on Arkansas and Tennessee, but not to draw on Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or Georgia without the consent of this Department. The reason for this was that Arkansas and Tennessee had not yet been subjected to any considerable drain of men, whereas the other States mentioned had been furnishing largely since the beginning of the war, and it was, and desired to proportion the calls on the different States with a due regard to their numbers of men capable of bearing arms. On other point also let me urgently