and infrequent opportunities of making known their condition and wants to this Government. Information, too, has been received that a convention of the principal men of the several nations friendly to the Confederate States will be held at some point west of the Mississippi River in February next. Your presence at this meeting is deemed necessary. For these reasons and others connected with the welfare of the Indians it is desired by this Department that you proceed, as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made, to the Indian country, and that you remain west of the Mississippi and in communication with the Indians so long as it may seem to you best for the interests of the Government. You will attend to the disbursement of the annuities and other moneys due the Indians and appropriated by Congress; will visit them, confer with them, see to the dissemination of news amongst them, and do whatever lawful acts and things that, in your opinion, will conduce to their prosperity and to the permanency of the present friendly relations between them and the Confederate States.

It is the wish of the Department that you consult freely with the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department. His advice and counsel will be of much service to you in carrying out the objects of the present mission, and in doubtful matters should be deferred to. You have several thousand dollars in coin west of the Mississippi River in the hands of depositaries of the Treasury. You would do well to retain this, or at any rate the major part of it, as exigencies may arise in your communications with certain of the Indian tribes in which the use of such money, during the war, may be indispensable. It is impossible to indicate at what point you should establish your office during your stay in the Trans-Mississippi Department. This will be left to your own discretion and judgment. It is proper, however, to say that it should be at some point where you will be in free and easy communication both with the Indian country and General Smith's headquarters. Either Paris or Bonham, Tex., or Fort Washita, in the Chickasaw country, it now seems, would do for this purpose. To meet the expenses of your mission the sum of $ 5,000 will be received by you from the Treasury. The amount of your necessary expenditures, verified by your certificate upon honor, will be sufficient for settlement.

Respectfully, yours,

JAMES, A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT,
Shreveport, La., January 6, 1864.

Major-General TAYLOR,

Commanding, & c.:

GENERAL: The lieutenant-general commanding directs me to inform you that he has this day directed Brigadier General St. John R. Liddell, recently of the Army of Tennessee, to report to you. As an evidence of the high appreciation in which he was held by his previous commanders, he directs me to inclose to you copies of the complimentary letters of Generals Bragg and Hardee in reference to him, and also of the order directing him to report at these headquarters. In view both of the growing importance and interest of the District of North Louisiana and of Brigadiere-General Liddell's