trust it may meet with the approval of the President to order Colonel Gary's regiment, of the Hampton Legion, to proceed overland, via Asheville, N. C., to Greenville, S. C., there to be mounted and organized as mounted infantry, and thence to be ordered to Richmond. Colonel Gary has been in more battles, perhaps, than any officer of his grade in the service. He is a thoroughbred gihther, cool and deliberate, with great good sense, and that rare quality which enables him to make his men confidnet and firm under him. We need such a man to meet sudden advances upon the capital with his band of trained veterans-men who have often fought as infantry alone can figth. The movement can, I think, be made in six weeks-eight at furthest. To form the Third Cavalry Regiment for this brigade, I would order seven unattached Mississippi companies from General Polk's command, or a battalion of seven companies, to unite with the three companies now in the Jeff. Davis Legion, from Mississippi. Our records of the Mississippi cavalry are too meager to permit the selection to be made here. It must be left to General Polk. It might be well for Colonel Armistead to bring seven companeis out of the ten recently assigned to him and Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, and with the three here form his regiment. There is a peculiar appropriateness in this brigade of Mississippi regiments being formed into the mixed brigade for the defense of Richmond. I will be glad to be permited, when the facts in regard to the Georgia troops are obtained, to embody them also for your consideration.

Very respectfully, general, your obedient servant,

SAML. W. MELTON,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Indorsement.]

MARCH 16, 1864.

Approved in all respects except in regard to the seven Mississippi companies for the Jeff. Davis Legion, which have already been ordered forward by General Polk. Let the order be prepared at once.*

S. C[OOPER].

[33.]

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Raleigh, March 17, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS:

SIR: I beg yoy attention to a matter of great importance to this State and the entire Confederacy. I allude to the business of blockade running. I learn that the new regulations upon foreign commerce are to be imposed as rigidly upon the ships of this State as upon those of private individuals, and I beg leave most respectfully, but earnestly, to enter my protest against such action and to state some of the many and obvious reasons which induce me to persist in the trade which this State has so successfully established.

The right of the State to engage in the exportation of its own productions and the importation of articles needed for the welfare of its soldiers and people is too plainly recognized to require discussion. I presume it was less to establish a right new to the States than to recognize and affirm the policy and utility of the enterprises that the law "imposing regulations upon foreign commerce" declared "that nothing

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* See Special Orders, Numbers 65, Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, March 18, 1864, VOL. XXXIII, p. 1231.

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