my plan,and I went to work vigorously. That regiment is to-day really larger than Colonel Moore's, and both can be filled out; but now your letter will control me, I am afraid, to the demolition and overthrow of the new corps. Independent of this new regiment, Mr. McMahon, formerly aide to General Floyd, has authority, I hear, to raise another, which I was informed was directed at headquarters or by the Secretary of War to report to me for duty, and to go into camp at once. Several of the captains of companies in it have been to see me and expressed their wish to be with me, and (as I learned from them) wanted to know when I would require them in the field. I replied that I could not let them have longer time than the 10th of May, and would be pleased that they should take the field by company at once, so that I might inspect their equipments and see that they were properly provided for while we remained near a depot. I found that they required Killinger's company from Smyth and wanted Cornutt's from Grayson to make out the regiment, and I was disposed to assist them, presuming that their authority was ample and already secured. They reported to me that the companies already raised were as follows: First, Hunter's; second, Lynch's; third, Dunn's; fourth, McDaniel's; fifth, Blessing's; sixth, Buchanan's; seventh, Killinger's. These are all from my counties, and all raised since the Governor's proclamation. These gentlemen said the regiment as thus constituted was to be made out by three companies from East Tennessee, already raised for the purpose; two of them commanded by Captains Cecil and Blair, and I forget the other name, if I ever heard it. They wanted the Marshall Rifles, from Grayson (Cornutt), and their regiment could and would organize and report to me by the 10th of May. My idea and plan was then to make one brigade of Virginia troops, composed of the Fifty-fourth, the Twenty-ninth, the Pound Gap regiment, Jeffress' battery of six pieces, the McMahon regiment, and Jenifer's Eighth Virginia Cavalry (if it ever troops,which it has not yet done). The other force to be my Kentucky troops, to wit: William's regiment; battery of four pieces; Bradley's Mounted Rifles; Shawhan's cavalry squadron, composed of his Kentucky company and Otis Caldwell's Virginia company; Withcher's and Stratton's companies of Mounted Gunmen. Witcher has now about 80 men; Stratton had 40 when he left here to go down into Logan County to recruit. His return will be some two weeks hence.

I receive occasional additions to my Kentucky force, and I have several officers (that are to be) now in the interior of that State, obtaining recruits and organizing my friends for a proper and prompt reception of my command when it shall again enter the State. They represent the people as being very restive, but as disarmed, and nearly despairing of our ability to do anything for their relief and deliverance. As soon as I can have a copy made I will send you a letter, addressed by me to Governor Magoffin last month, which I have reason to believe he duly received, though I have no reply to it yet. Its motive and points you will readily comprehend.

I have thus explained to you, general, the plan I had adopted and was pursuing to try to create a force for the war that would give me a command at least equal to my rank. I was pursuing it under great difficulty, and when my relations to a stranger people were invested by circumstances with points of exceeding delicacy. I did not purpose to exhausted the militia, but to extract from it only such numbers as would complete the four regiments above alluded to and to interfere as little as possible with recruits already obtained from this quarter. My success