when Cloud advances in front. I wish to have everything of value, not needed for immediate use, removed to Boggy Depot, if trains are going that way, or to some point on that road.

General Cabell moves easterly this morning, and I shall soon move all this command as far as I can in that direction without increasing my depots. I think this move of the Federals a general one, to occupy the Arkansas River along its whole extent. It may be that Cloud will go to Clarksville, leaving Fort Smith to Blunt.

Very respectfully,

WM. STEELE,

Brigadier-General.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Little Rock, Ark., August 8, 1863.

Hon. R. W. JOHNSON:

DEAR SIR: For reasons not necessary to state, it is inexpedient for me to leave Little Rock at this time, and I therefore ask you in my behalf to attend the meeting of the military and civil authorities at Marshall on the 15th instant. I assume, as facts which bear upon the subjects for the consideration of that meeting:

1st. That the loss of Arkansas and the Indian country involves the loss permanently of the State of Missouri, or one-half of the department.

2nd. That if the army should be removed to Red River, it would be more easy to take Arkansas than it has been to take any other State, not even excepting Missouri or Kentucky.

3rd. Were there every so large an army at Shreveport, the Arkansas Valley could be taken by troops brought from ---- before relief could arrive from our own army.

4th. That we should act upon it as a certainty that the Federal forces would avail themselves of so favorable an opportunity to reduce the State as they would have should the infantry be removed.

5th. That the army in Arkansas, except as to arms, is and has been supplied by the State, and, should the army fall back, it can neither be clothed nor fed, unless supplies can be had from beyond the limits of the Confederacy.

6th. That all such parts of Louisiana as lie on or adjacent to navigable waters would be indefensible as soon as the water rises, for the reason that the Federal Government has a large number of gunboats which will aid in occupying the country.

7th. That Texas, lying on the Red River, will certainly be invaded whenever Arkansas and the Indian Nations fall.

Believing these positions to be true, Arkansas must be understood, for he own interests and the interests of the Confederacy, as protesting against all measures which involve the removal of the army, or the infantry of the army,from the State of Arkansas, or to a point south of the Arkansas River.

I now propose to enroll the men between sixteen and sixty not subject to the conscript law; but, while this is done, is as well to state that the history of the world does not present an instance where such a force has made a campaign, and in the present war, although they have been used for guards, and possibly in some instances as garrisons,and in a few instances men of extraordinary vigor have done service in the line, yet to reply upon such a force, except strictly for home defense against raids, would exhibit willful blindness as to facts and experience. Whenever