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

ville, and General Tilghman has been ordered to send some 500 arms to that point to meet it. See that this is done, and give orders to this regiment. General Tilghman will be retained by you at Hopkinsville until you are fully posted as to the country and the command. Clarksville will form a part of your command, and you will see that the works now in progress are properly garrisoned.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. W. MACKALL, Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION, CENTRAL ARMY OF KENTUCKY, Oakland, Ky., November 15, 1861.

Lieutenant D. G. WHITE, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I beg to call attention to the condition of the troops of this brigade enlisted for the term of during the war. By the extraordinary exposure to which they have been subjected discharges and deaths have more than decimated nearly every company. It is manifestly very desirable that these companies shall be recruited speedily up to full strength; but that is impossible under existing circumstances. Regiments originally enlisted for twelve months, whose terms are now about one-half expired, offer superior inducements, and no recruits are obtained for the war. Unless something is done to counteract this, the strength of regiments enlisted for the war will be more and more reduced, and finally at no distant day their ranks will be so thinned as to destroy their organization. This is now almost the case in some of the companies of the Second Arkansas Regiment and First Arkansas Battalion.

I suggest, as the only efficient remedy, that the pay of soldiers enlisted or enlisting for the war be increased to $25 per month; that their commutation money be increased to $50 for each period of six months; that their pay be continued four months after expiration of service, and also that extra attention be given to their armament, equipments, &c., so as to make their service more desirable and attractive in all respects than service for shorter terms.

There are six months' companies armed with Minie muskets and Enfield rifles, while the Second Arkansas Regiment and First Arkansas Battalion, enlisted for the war, have the common flint-lock musket. If this was just oppositely arranged, it would seem more just, and would certainly be more politic.

I request that this communication be forwarded to the Headquarters of the Army at Richmond.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

T. C. HINDMAN, Brigadier-General.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS WESTERN DEPARTMENT, November 22, 1861.

I do not doubt that greater inducements should be given men to enroll for during the war. The manner in which the men for short periods yet to serve are armed is due, I suppose, to the States from which they came.

A. S. JOHNSTON, General, C. S. Army.