when the authorities of Georgia will be prepared to turn over the properly mentioned to the Confederate States; and in making this request I beg Your Excellency to understand that I am actuated only be the desire to be prepared at the earliest moment at which Your Excellency can perfect the transfer to take possession for the forts and arsenald, and to make the other property as useful as possible for defense. The present emergency makes it absolutely necessary for this Government to arrange and distribute its forces and resources so as to make them all available, and in that necessity Your Excellency will at once see the reason for the inquiry I have made. Whenever Georgia, acting on Your Excellency's views of propriety and State interest, shall be ready to make the transfer to the Confederacy, it is the wish of this Department to have its appointments made to the occupation of the fort and arsenal without loss of time. A notification in advance as to the time when it will suit the State authorities to made the transfer will enable the Department to make these arrangements advantageously, and I trust I shall not be understood as going beyond a request for such notification, or of defigning to interfere with or affect in any way such action in the premises as may have been determined on by Your Excellency.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

L. P. WALKER.

[1.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Montgomery, April 10, 1861.

JOHN C. BRUCH, Esq.,

Nashville, Tenn.:

SIR: The engagements of the Secretary of War just now are so urgent and continuous as to make personal reply, except after a delay too great, to your letter of the 6th instant impossible. I am

therefore istructed to say to your that volunteer troops from State without the Confederacy, though no admitted into the Provisional Army, can and will be, in the event of actual hostilities, received into the service of the Confederate States as part of their general volunteer force, authorized to be raised be an act of Congress " to provide for the public defense." That act authorizes the raising of 100, 000 such troops, if deemed necessary. Waiving, until he shall heve the pleasure of seeing you during your proposed visit to this city, the discussion of certain propositions in your letter, the Secretary directs me to suggest to you that in case of actual hostilities any organized body of men, whether regiment, battalion, or company from your State desiring to offer their services to this Government, would do well to assemble, armed and equippped, at some convenient point on a railway line wihtin the Confederate States, and an early notification after the commencement of war that they are or will be at a given [and early] date so assembled at such point will greatly increase the probability of their being reveived. You will please bear in mind that until mustered in by an officer of this Government our laws make no provision for paying or defraying the expenses of such troops. [They can be mustered into service at any point within this Confederacy.] The Secretary highly appreciates the patriotism which animates yourself and the other true and brave men of Tennessee who are preparing to aid the Confederate States against a common enemy.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. J. HOOPER,

Private Secretary.

[4.]