necessary, and will proceed to Mobile and assume command of District of the Gulf.

* * * * * * *

By command of General Bragg:

GEO. G. GARNER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. DIST. OF TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, AND ARIZONA,
Houston, Tex., December 15, 1862.

Major S. S. ANDERSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Trans-Mississippi Department:

SIR: Inclosed I have the honor to transmit a copy of instructions handed to me by Major S. Hart, special agent on the part of the War Department for the purchase of arms, supplies, &c., from and through Mexico. Major Hart has requested me to publish such orders as will facilitate him in the execution of his duties. I have had a long confalicilitate with Governor Lubbock, of this State; General Bee, charged with the execution of orders from Headquarters Trans-Mississippi Department, dated Little Rock, Ark., October 14, 1862; Mr. Lantham, Confederate collector at Brownsville, and Major Hart, with the object of carrying out the orders of Lieutenant-General Holmes more stringently, and of producing harmony of action among the different agents who had already made purchases of cotton and contracts based upon the same. In consequence of this want of unity and other causes cotton has gone up to 25 cents per pound, and transportation as high as 20 cents, paid in specie. The most of the cotton on the route is in the hands of the permit of General Bee to be stopped on the Rio Grande. I have also ordered that all men coming under the conscript act engaged in conscript camp for service, unless they will use their teams hauling cotton for the Government. The order of Lieutenant-General Holmes had had already a good effect, bringing down the price of cotton 5 cents a pound, and if I can increase the facilities of transporting cotton to the Government agents and decrease them to the specular much good may be done. It is absolutely necessary for success, however, that the Government agents, whether appointed from Richmond or by authority of General Holmes or in any other way, should know each other and act in unison. I have therefore ordered all agents, either of the Treasury Department, War Department, or commanding officer of the Trans-Mississippi Department, or acting under any other authority, to report their authority to these headquarters forthwith, with a view of submitting them to Major Hart, who is, I believe, provided with a Department. I have requested him to report forthwith by letter to Lieutenant-General Holmes. I shall order him also to send invoice of all supplies he may receive to the headquarters of Lieutenant-General Holmes, in order that the orders of the latter may be communicated to me before these supplies are distributed. I presume this is already provided for, however, in the orders on this subject to my predecessor, Brigadier-General Hebert. The headquarters being at San Antonio I have not yet had access to the order-book or files of the office.

It will be perceived that Major Hart has the power to impress trans-