ment in relation to the force in East Kentucky (the district of Prestonburg), assigned to you, nor yet in relation to those forces you were authorized to raise. The object of giving you a force was announced to him by the Department, and the scope of your powers was learned from your letters.

2. From the powers with which you are invested and the full conversations you had with the general he presumed that the forces placed at your disposal and the unlimited power to raise additional forces would, as the Department hoped, be fully equal to the execution of the plans you had concerted with the Department.

3. He believed that the general intended you to have a wide discretion as to your movements and entire control over the administration of your forces, leaving to the general a supervisory power, with the authority to combine your movements with corps of the Army when the proper time arrived.

4. So believing, and finding that your force fell not only below your anticipations, but was so small as to render it doubtful whether they would insure the immediate object had in view, viz, the protection of the "frontier of Prestonburg and its vicinity," he saw that the time had no yet arrived when it could be combined in the movement of any other corps of this army, and therefore gave you no orders.

5. He was satisfied that you were making yourself fully acquainted with the field of your operations, and that it would be inexpedient at this distance to make suggestions as to your movements, even had he been as fully advised as you were of the special views of the general as to the precise objects to be reached by it.

6. His order to General Crittenden was not intended to reach your command, nor, until the receipt of your letter last night, was he apprised of the fact that that general had taken your district under his command. He immediately telegraphed to General Carroll, local commander of Knoxville, to return those you had put in march for this place.

7. At this distance your arrangements to place your infantry on the mountain line and cover a trail by the advance of your cavalry for subsistence seems judicious.*

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. W. MACKALL,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS BRIGADE, Camp Recovery, 1 mile from Prestonburg, Ky., December 10, 1861.

S. COOPER,
Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond:

GENERAL: I have the pleasure to inform you that I have been located here for several days, and to report to you that I have in camp Williams' regiment, which is gradually being filled, and that Trigg's regiment, with Jeffress' battery, will arrive at Prestonburg to-day, they having advanced from the Richlands by the Louisa Fork of the Sandy and by the way of Piketon. I came by Whitesburg, in Letcher County, through the corner of Posey County, and so far through Floyd. I think I have established friends for the Confederate States on a sound basis wherever I have been. My effort has been to conciliate the people, and to teach them by example that the Army of the Confederate

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*See Marshall to Johnston, December 22, p. 40.

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