by Knoxville to Kentucky with large escort-2,000 or 3,000 men-and can carry the arms. Have you any to send and where will Maxey find them? Middle Tennessee reported joining us in great numbers and most of them without arms. If there are arms at Columbus, Miss., or Gainesville, Ala., can I get them by sending for them?

SAM. JONES,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF EAST TENNESSEE,
Knoxville, Tenn., September 16, 1862.

Major General E. KIRBY SMITH, Lexington, Ky.:

GENERAL: Smith's Legion and the 2,000 convalescents are on the way to join you, escorting money and ordnance. It was with great difficulty that I armed the convalescents. I send them by way of Jamestown, Big Creek Gap having been blockaded, and I did not care to risk the funds so near an enemy. De Courcy, with his brigade, left the Gap with 500 wagons-I presume to collect provisions. Morgan is getting in some supplies. I fear he does not intend to leave. Governor Harris' and General Bragg's conscription orders have thrown the whole country into a feverish state, and I do not think I overestimate when I say thousands are stampeding to the mountains and to Morgan.

Respectfully,]

J. P. McCOWN,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS,
Chattanooga, Tenn., September 16, 1862.

General BRAXTON BRAGG,

Commanding in the Field:

GENERAL: Your letter* of the 12th instant to me, with the telegrams of the same date to General Price and Breckinridge, and your telegram* of the 6th to Colonel [Samuel] Tate, superintendent Memphis and Charleston Railroad, were received a few [days?] since. The telegrams have been dispatched, and the instructions conveyed in your letter will be immediately carried out.

Major-General McCown informed me by letter of the 10th that Smith's Legion was on the way to co-operate with General Stevenson in cutting off a party of the enemy about Big Creek and Rogers' Gaps. I have informed General McCown by telegraph of your instructions to me in regard to Smith's Legion, and have some hope that the command under General Maxey will overtake it. Maxey's command shall be immediately put in motion. The party (1,400) of stragglers and convalescents under Captain Taylor is but 3 or 4 miles on the other side of the river. It will recross to-day and go with the Forty-first Alabama Regiment (Colonel Talbird) by railroad to Knoxville. I will send every musket, rifle, shot-gun, and pistol that can be of any service by General Maxey. I regret that I have so few to send. I have written and telegraphed the Chief of Ordnance to send me arms, and represented the importance of having them, but have received neither arms nor answers to my communications.

The work of repairing the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad is going on rapidly. One or two trains will be crossed over the river at

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* Not found.

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