CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN WEST FLORIDA, SOUTHERN ALABAMA, SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI, AND LOUISIANA FROM MAY 12, 1862, TO MAY 14, 1863; AND IN TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, AND ARIZONA FROM SEPTEMBER 20, 1862, TO MAY 14, 1863.

UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, EXEC. DEPT.,

Boston, November 27, 1861.*

Captain G. V. FOX,

Assistant Secretary of the Navy:

SIR: I wish to call your especial attention to a which was been pressed upon my notice by some practical, experienced, and influential business men, and which I cannot but regard with much favor. It is that the Federal Government should make its next demonstration upon the coats of Texas, the State easiest to take and hold, with larger public consequences dependent upon such action than any other. Texas we virtually brought; her rebellion makes her a dependency for treatment under the war power and through Congress.

The force when landed should proclaim martial law, with reference to the future action of Congress, when the proper time arrives to free all the slaves, compensating loyal owners if necessary.

RESULTS>

1st. We flank the whole rebellion.

2nd. We open a way out for cotton.

3rd. We cut future annexations in the interest of the rebels, and demonstrate to foregoing powers that this war is to stop the spread of slavery.

4th. Instead of loyal men leaving Texas, as they are now doing, for California and elsewhere, they will remain, and in few years will fill Texas with a Europan emigration, which will demonstrate, as the Germans of Texas are now doing, that cotton can be raised without slaves though hired negroes may also be used.

5th. Galveston is but 600 miles from Lawrence and Saint Joseph, and a railroad will be run through Texas and Arkansas to those places, and the question of conflict of systems of labor and political power will be settled forever, leaving the question of calvary in the cotton States for philosophical treatment, unless it becomes necessary to settle it under the war power before the present war is ended.

These points are urged, not in the interest of Abolitionists, but by leading commercial men and capitalists, as fairly coming under the necessities and rules of war. Martial law proclaimed, events will no doubt educate the people and the next Congress to a wise solution of all questions which may afterward arise in connection with slaves and slavery in an exceptional State or dependency like Texas.

By such seizure and treatment of Texas as is briefly indicated above it is urged that we shall have at the end of the war material guarantees that will prevent any such compromise or settlement as to make a renewal of the struggle for ascedency or another rebellion possible.

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* Original received too late for publication in Series I, Vol. VI.

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