HEADQUARTERS THIRTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
L. PIERCE, JR., Esg.,

U. S. Consul, Matamoras:

SIR: I inclose a letter for Kimmey; it is quite confidential and important, and I hope you will find early opportunity to send it. Should any letters come to me through your hands will you be good enough to send them in an envelope to me either via New Orleans or direct by steamer, whichever is at the the time most practicable? In my future operations it will be of service if you will write me occasionally pretty fully and frankly. Write private letters, and I will be under obligations to you. If you cold with discretion send me a truly messenger across the country to my camp wherever it is-Indianola, Lavaca, Texarkana, or wherever [I am]-so that he could pick up all information he can regarding the enemy and regarding our friends who are in the interior, it would be of service to me.

You had better select one who lives in or who knows all the country around Victoria, Matagorda, and Harris Counties, and whom I could hire as a guide after he arrival. Let me know how much pay he is to have for his trip. He should be smart, true, and courageous.

You have not many smart detectives around Beownsville.

By keeping me fully advised, you will much oblige, with high respect and esteem, your friend,

N. J. T. DANA,

Major-General.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.] HEADQUARTERS THIRTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Matagorda Bay, January 8, 1864.

M. M. KIMMEY, Esg.,

U. S. Vice-Consul, Monterey:

SIR: I inclose a letter for McManus, which I hope you will find means to send him. Whilst I am operating on the coast of Texas and to the interior from this vicinity, I hope you will be able to find means to send me information not only by mail via New Orleans but by spies and messengers through the country to my headquarters. I will pay their expenses on their arrival. Do not send too many, as that would expose us to risks; they should be trusty, cunning, intelligent, truthful, and courageous. If you send me any dispatches and will date them at Bagdad, at the month of the river, and be careful to have them in the same handwriting as all dispatched I have received from you, and they are not signed at all, I shall understand that they are from you.

Miscall names also as follows; Call Monterey by the name of Washington; Piedras Negras, Philadelphia; Rio Grande, Delaware; Eagle Pass, New York; Laredo, Harrisburg; San Antonio, Boston; Brownsville, New Orleans. Other names in the interior of Texas may be used properly. Change none but those I have given you. Call General Carleton by the name of General Grant; General West, General Foster; General Herron, General Gillmore.

I have left General Herron, in command at Brownsville, and I have explained to him that you will send down vouchers. It is supposed that the rebel guerrilla chief, John Morgan, has after escaping from prison, started for home via Monterey. If he could be taken or