officers have no money, and can only proceed in violation of law. If they attempt this they will be resisted by force and prosecuted in the courts of the country. All these evils arise from the want of funds. This want is pressing and urgent in the extreme, and the great necessities of the department, the importance of the subject as connected with the efficiency of the Army, render it necessary that I should again thus strongly and truthfully present this matter, even at the hazard of being considered importunate. Estimates of indebtedness have been sent forward. The Honorable P. W. Gray, the C. S. Treasury agent for this department, has been appealed to in vain. This department is practically without funds and without the means of procuring them. I send this by the hands of Lieutenant D. H. Cooper Jr., aide-de-camp, in the hope that the suggestions in the inclosed letter of Major Haynes may be adopted and the sum of at least $30,000,000 or $40,000,000 be sent for the quartermaster's department at once. The pay department is in the same deplorable condition. Many troops in the field have not been paid a dollar in sixteen months; some not a dollar in nearly two years. The entire indebtedness of the pay department for bounty, clothing, money, and pay proper is over $50,000,000. Half that sum in pay funds would greatly relieve the soldiers and improve their efficiency. I request that you will bring this matter to the consideration of the President.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. KIRBY SMITH,

General.

[Inclosure.]

OFFICE CHIEF QUARTERMASTER TRANS. MISS. DEPT.,

Shreveport, La., February 8, 1865.

Brigadier General W. R. BOGGS,

Chief of Staff;

GENERAL; I beg leave to call the attention of the general commanding to the fact that this department is without sufficient funds to meet its current expenses, without which much inconvenience and annoyance must necessarily arise, and which will culminate in an almost total suspension of its operations unless the difficulties can be speedily overcome. The recent law of Congress, as published in General Orders, Numbers 30, Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, March 7, 1864, places it beyond the power of the officers of this department to purchase even by impressment lately our main reliance of securing necessary supplies of quartermaster's stores in the department, owing to the impracticability of procuring them by contract, or by purchase in the open market with certificates of indebtedness or certified accounts. Something, then, should be done to obviate these troubles, and I suggest to the general commanding if it is impracticable for the Honorable p. W. Gray, agent of the Treasury, Trans-Mississippi Department, to meet demands upon him, the expediency of sending an officer of this department direct to Richmond with estimates for this office, now on file in the adjutant-general's office; and to avoid delay it is recommended that the officer be instructed to communicate with the Department at Richmond from the first telegraph or signal station, stating our necessities, and if possible procure orders on the nearest depository for funds, to be returned here without delay in the hands of a special messenger. I will also allude to the fact that the certificates of indebtedness placed at the disposal of this office were of a character that almost precludes their use, 80 per cent. being in the large sums of $1,000 each. This should be corrected, if it is expected