percussion caps; has two powder mills; has 30,703 pounds common powder, 28,635 pounds lead, 90,000 rounds fixed ammunition, and 6,232 pounds buckshot. One regiment State troops arrived and supplied with ammunition. Has distributed to counties a limited quantity of powder and caps; has forwarded great numbers of cotton-cards to her people; is manufacturing cotton-cards, and has material to keep in good repair the factories in the penitentiary. Arkansas can furnish 8,000 to 10,000; he immense quantities of provision and forage. Louisiana can furnish 5,000 to 6,000 troops; has an excess of corn, sugar, and molasses.

As to the manufacturing of clothing, &c., and mineral resources of this department, we refer the general commanding to reports of his clothing, niter, and mining bureaus, and his ordnance department, as more reliable sources of information than any in our possession.

Missouri at present is chiefly valuable as a recuriting ground for the Confederate Army. It is thought that a good system of recuriting in Missouri would add a regiment per month from that State.

As to the best means of bringing into use the whole population for the protection of their homes, we urge the execution of the conscription law, with the privilege of volunteering, the calling out of the militia by the Governor, the enrollment of volunteers for the same term of service most agreeable to persons not liable to military duty, and some proper system of volunteering in districts of country where the conscript law cannot be enforced by reason of actual or threatened invasion, and by every consideration of public safety and necessity we urge the impressment of negro teamsters to take the place of soldiers in all Government trains.

We ask respectfully to be discharged from the further consideration of the means of increasing the loyalty, restoring the confidence, &c., and that proposition be considered by the entire conference.

THOS. C. REYNOLDS,

Chairman.

Mr. Murrah submitted the following report; which was unanimously adopted:

The undersigned, a sub-committee, to whom was referred this question, the "appointment of commissioner to confer with French and Mexican authorities in Mexico," respectfully submit that the dependence of the Trans-Mississippi Department upon the ports of Mexico for supplies and for communication abroad, together with the relationship of the French and Mexican Governments at the present time, makes and understanding with the authorities by those Governments highly important, if not absolutely essential. The disposition of these powers and other officials can only be ascertained by correspondence with them. The correspondence, under the existing state of things, even as to civil matters, cannot, perhaps, be conducted desirably through the Government, and as the correspondence is merely directed to the interests of this department and its immediate wants, the law,, whenever the law speaks, and propriety, where the law is silent, points out the military commander of the department as the proper official to institute and commence the correspondence. As to the mode of carrying on the correspondence, it is, of course, to be left to the discretion of the commander, and yet i is not deemed improper to suggest that the importance of the subject authorizes, if it does not require, an agent, intelligent, well informed, of known character, one adapted to inspire confidence by his knowledge and discretion, and not likely to be misled, in these times of trial