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

accomplish this and impress the enemy with an exsection of an advance by us. Secure yourself at the same time for his enterprise on your rear from the right and left. Let that portion of your command which for want of teams depends for transportation on the railroad be posted at Dripping Springs.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. W. MACKALL,

HEADQUARTERS,

Camp Hopkinsville, October 21, 1861.

Brigadier General S. B. Buckner, C. S. A., Bowling Green, Ky.:

SIR: I had the honor to send you dispatch this morning. The gunboat Conestoga passed up to Cantom or Linton Saturday, took 1,000 barrels of flour, and passed down again Sunday, I suppose to Smithland. Jackson's force at owensborough is increasing; has 300 or 400 cavalry constantly scouring the country around him. Our friends are suffering greatly. Jackson is receiving large supplies of small-arms, Minie muskets, Colt's and Enfield rifles; three steamboats, as my spy says, are now discharging at that place; munitions are being sent in quantities to Hartford from Calhoum. The enemy is active, and unless you can move soon in that direction, the pork, bacon, wheat, all subsistence upon which we rely in that direction, will be lost to us. A movement to Madisonville, Calhoun, Henderson, and Owensborough promptly made would give us the whole country. If this cannot be done, then the country will be a barren treasure when acquired.

The Kentuckians still come in small squads. I have induced the most of them to go in for the war. This required about three speeches a day. When thus stirred up, they go almost a man. Since I have found that I can't be a general, I have turned recruiting agent and sensation speaker for the brief period that I shall remain. By all means supplies and equipments, if any are to be had, should be sent to this post. I now have about 250 war men, without arms, camp equipage, or anything else. My quartermaster is out of money, and can't obtain it, except on personal security. At Nashville he obtained & 7,000, of which I advised you, in this way: happening to meet a responsible acquaintance in that city. This, I submit, ought to be a post or it ought not. Major Hewett has returned. My command is now mustered into the service, except about 60 sick at Clarksville, who will not muster in (although I have written them) until they see me. When I can see them, they will muster in. I can do this as I return home. I know they will do as I say.

Let me impress upon you the necessity of sending a competent officer to command this post; the senior colonel is disqualified; the army will be demoralized under his command; he is clever enough, but is indolent, and requires to be looked after. I had about as soon be shot as to leave here, but would rather be shot that remain a hermaphrodite in the service. I have a young man now under arrest for making or using threatening and abusive language on the streets towards myself and the army; among other things he intended to shoot myself. Such language should not be permitted, and I shall, unless I find imprisonment at hand labor sufficient to suppress it, make some examples of servity that be sufficient for the purpose. It is openly avowed that our indulgence results from our conscious weakness. The course