EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Nashville, Tenn., February 15, 1862.

General JOHNSTON:

MY DEAR SIR: General Pillow's dispatch after the battle of to-day shows that the enemy is being re-enforced and will probably attack us again. (A copy of this dispatch the operator informs me he sent to you.)

Will you pardon me, my dear sir, for suggesting and respectfully urging the immediate re-enforcement of our gallant and glorious little army there to the extent of our ability. A few thousand men thrown to their aid immediately may turn the scale and make our victory complete and triumphant.

If there is anything that State authorities can do to aid this or any other matter they are at your command.

Respectfully,

ISHAM G HARRIS.

EDGEFIELD, TENN., February 15, 1862.

Honorable J. P. BENJAMIN:

I learn 15,000 arms have run the blockade on the steamship Victoria at New Orleans. I request that they may be immediately sent to me at Murfreesborough, Tenn., where there will be an agent to receive them, suggesting that they may be placed in charge of special messenger, with power to impress all passenger locomotives on the rail roads, by which means they can be sent in less than half the time that freight engines would deliver them. I also wish to ascertain what kind of guns they are, their caliber and character, so as to have proper ammunition prepared here at Nashville by the time they arrive. The men to use them can be found, and in the presence emergency they may be of vital importance.

I am, sir, very respectfully,

A. S. JOHNSTON,

General, C. S. Army.

EDGEFIELD, February 15, 1862-11.30 p. m.

Honorable J. P. BENJAMIN:

I earnestly request that the arms may be immediately sent from New Orleans which I mentioned in my dispatch this evening.

A. S. JOHNSTON.

GLADESVILLE, VA., February 15, 1862.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General:

GENERAL: I have information now which renders it certain that the enemy contemplates a movement into Virginia by assailing the line of the mountains in several places simultaneously. In the execution of this purpose he is busy, using the navigation of the Sandy for the purpose of collecting supplies at Piketon, and is pressing his troops there as rapidly as he can. I hear from the scouts that only 1,600 had arrived at Piketon at the first of this week, and that other corps are at Prestonburg, Paintsville, Louisa, and Catlettsburg; that the column intended to be employed is 12,000; and that the Pound Gap and the