HDQRS. NORTHERN SUB-DISTRICT F ARKANSAS,
Camp below August, June 13, 1864.

Colonel T. H. McCRAY,

Commanding, &c.:

COLONEL: I desire you to push conscription to the utmost, the rich as well as the poor. Make no exemptions but what are permitted by law and take all the rest. As soon as a squad reports put them in some organization and hurry the companies to completion. I send you a paper of the 1st instant, and will cheerfully keep you posted from the Federal lines. Nothing new from the enemy.

Very respectfully, your friend,

JO. O. SHELBY,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, C. S. A.,

Richmond, Va., June 14, 1864.

General E. K. SMITH,

Commanding Trans-Mississippi Department:

GENERAL: Your letter of May 5 was received through Colonel Bryan, and the matters with which he was charged were communicated by him. Your commendation of Colonel Bryan is, I am well assured, merited. The adjutant-general has responded as fully as possible to Colonel Bryan's communications touching your department. In reply to your request urging the necessity of better sustaining you in the administration of your department, I can only say that it has been my earnest endeavor not only to comply with your expressed wishes, but to extend your powers to the utmost limit consistent with law and the nature of our Government. Legislation has been invoked to meet the extraordinary circumstances in which you have been placed by granting fuller powers, and laws in confidermity therewith have been passed. Nothing on my part has ben left untired to invest you with the requisite authority for effectively administering your department. You, alike with myself, are limited by law, but as in the past, so in the future, my ability to sustain you will be the measure of the assistance rendered to you, While I cannot regret that you deeply feel the responsibility that accompanies the great interests confided to you, I rejoice that your trust is in the only power that confers strength and wisdom.

Which the hope that the successes recently attained in your department are but an earnest of the future, I am, very truly and respectfully, yours.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Richmond, Va., June 15, 1864.

General E. K. SMITH,

Commanding, &c.:

GENERAL: The communications to you of late, through the Adjutant-General's Department rather than directly from myself, have been so made because almost invariably, on mere matters of detail, and not conveying any general instructions or views of policy, with the difficulties of communication and the imperfect information