I have ordered everything in my command to be in readiness, but cannot say when they will be ready. Please stir up Colonel Walker and require him to be ready.

N. B.-General McCulloch has requested me to let Quantrill, if he wished to, go northward into Kansas or Missouri, Accordingly I have sent for Quantrill, and will, if he will obey, send him up to the west of Gibson to stampede those Kansas Indians and run them into Kansas. My own men can then turn toward Fort Smith and join on sans Bois or Brazil, or some point on the road we advance. Battle would have fallen in among the Federals, but if they have gone a raid now to Roseville and along the river to destroy cotton, &c., passing to the rear of the enemy, would pay.

D. H. C.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Austin, Tex., April 7, 1864.

Major General J. BANKHEAD MAGRUDER:

SIR: Your communication of the 2nd instant was handed me on yesterday by your courier. As you have declined receiving the State troops as State troops, I shall be force, in view of the dangers surrounding the State and country, to co-operate with you in organizing them under the recent law of Congress. I shall have to announce to the troops that you decline to receive them under the State law as a reason why they must, in order to defend their country, organize under the law of Congress. I shall endeavor to meet the plan proposed by you, as nearly as I feel authorized, under the State and Confederate laws. I shall take upon myself the responsibility, which I feel to be a very heavy one, of calling upon the State troops to look no longer to an organization under the State laws.

I feel that this course is forced upon me by your refusing to receive them as State troops, and in view of the alarming condition of the country. I sincerely hope that the course pursued by you will prove to be the best for the State. I must say, generally, that some liberality should be extended to the conscripts under forty-five years of age, and that they should be permitted to volunteer into companies, and thence into regiments authorized to be raised, and I believe it will produce good results. I think also that men embraced by the recent conscript law should have secured to them, as nearly as existing circumstances will admit, all the advantages and privileges to which they are entitled under that law. I still believe that it would have been better to have received the troops under the State law, and that you should have co-operated with me properly insecuring a reorganization for that purpose.

But when I agree with you upon a plan of getting the troops in the field I shall give you my co-operation heartily and without reserve, trusting that it may lead to the best results for the country. Colonel D. B. Culberson, adjutant and inspector-general of the State, will be in Houston on Monday, and will be authorized to arrange this matter fully with you, and to issue, in connection with yours, all necessary orders. He would go by stage to-day, but his health will not permit him to travel by stage. I hope you will issue no orders until he arrives at Houston.

P. MURRAH.

P. S.-I will write you further by Colonel Culberson.

P. MURRAH.