be included to give such orders without reference to these headquarters or to the cotton bureau when established, as they produce inexplicable confusion and result disastrously. None know the difficulties unless they here and have seen them, and not one order in a hundred which would be likely to be given by those unacquainted with these difficulties could be obeyed, with every desire to do so.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. BANKHEAD MAGRUDER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF TEXAS, &C.,
Houston, Tex., October 16, 1863.

Brigadier General HENRY E. McCULLOCH,

Commanding Northern Sub-District, Bonham:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 11th, with the inclosed copy of General Cooper's communication, containing the gratifying information of the retreat of the enemy in the Indian Territory.

The major-general commanding directs me to inform you that the State troops, so far as their organization and the conscripts in them is concerned, will be controlled by the bureau at these headquarters. He does not wish the conscripts from the State troops until their time expires, as it would disorganize those companies, and he thinks that there will be time to dispose of them in the interval. You will, therefore, let them continue to serve with and as a part of their present companies in the State troops until further orders form these headquarters.

At last accounts the enemy were between Vermillionville and Opelousas, 22,000 to 30,000 strong, apparently advancing on Alexandria first.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

STEPHEN D. YANCEY,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS NORTHERN SUB-DISTRICT,
Bonham, Tex., October 16, 1863.

Captain EDMUND P. TURNER,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Houston, Tex.:

CAPTAIN: The State troops come in slowly, and are very poorly armed; the latter evil can be remedied by sending me some of the arms which have lately arrived at Brownsville, which I trust the major-general will order to me by mule teams as early as possible, and as many as he, in his judgment, may think proper for the troops that he intends for me. Everything form our front looks so perfectly quiet, that I hardly know whether the re-enforcements, which the general spoke of, need be sent to me, but this may only be the calm which precedes the storm, and if the thinks they can be spared from the coast it would be well to send them here, as they could be supplied conveniently with forage and subsistence, and could be thrown to General Holmes in case he was pressed back to Texas via Fulton.

My pacific policy with regard to deserters has not so far succeeded as well as I had hoped for, but I could not have pursued any other course very well, as I had not, nor have I yet, force enough of a reliable char-