IV. Officers commanding companies, battalions, and regiments will report without delay to department headquarters the names and rank of the officers captured from their respective commands.

V. Paragraph VI of General Orders, Numbers 40, series of 1864, from department headquarters, is amended as follows: When sugar and molasses are not issued the ration of fresh beef will be one pound and a half, or of bacon three-quarters of a pound, of flour one pound and a half, or of corn meal one pound and a half.

To those who labor ten hours or more daily the ration of sugar and molasses will also be issued in addition to the above.

Paragraph II of General Orders, Numbers 62, series of 1864, from department headquarters, is hereby revoked.

By command of General E. Kirby Smith:

S. S. ANDERSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT,
Shreveport, January 8, 1865.

Colonel JOSIAH GORGAS,

Chief of Ordnance, Richmond, Va.:

COLONEL: Captain F. Mohl is sent to you by General Huger with instructions to endeavor to effect the introduction from abroad of arms and accountermets to meet the necessities of the army in this department. The requisitions call for at least 14,000 stand of arms for the troops in the field. While the Reserve Corps remains unarmed, 25,000 stand of arms with accountermets could be well used in this department. I recommend that these arms and accountermets be purchased abroad on the credit of the first cargoes of cotton sent from this department to Fraser, Trenholm & Colonel The delay will be too great if we wait until the present plan of the Treasury Department for the introduction of supplies has been put in practical operation. I understand that Alexander, Collie & Co. have a very large number of Enfield rifles in the West Indies, under a contract with our Government. Arrangements might be made for the immediate delivery here of these arms and accountermets, consigned to Major Rhett, chief of ordnance, and the agent of the Treasury for this department instructed to provide for the payment thereof.

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

E. K. SMITH,

General.

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT,
January 9, 1865.

Honorable John SLIDELL,

Paris, France:

SIR: I have the honor again to invite your attention to the state of affairs in this department. Our cause has reached a crisis to call for foreign intervention. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the Emperor of the French that the security of his empire in Mexico and the interests of his own Government all demand immediate interference to restore peace and establish firmly the nationality of the Confederate States. I have formed the opinion from careful observation that in the great slave districts of this department nineteen-twentieths of the