sporting rifle with minie-ball, and have no doubt it may be made a highly effective arm for all shooting purposes upon the battle-field. I am taking steps to raise the four regiments called for by your dispatch to be thus armed, and hope to have them ready for the field at no distant day.

Your dispatch is silent as to the subsistence, transportation, pay, &c., of the troops called for. I feel warranted, however, in assuming that these all follow as necessary incidents to the act of being mustered into the service of the Government of the Confederate States, and therefore have given orders to have them mustered in as fast as regiments are found organized and ready. The number of troops stationed at Cairo and above that point on the river and railroads, taken in connection with many other indications unmistakable in their character, but unnecessary to be enumerated here, drives me to the conclusion that the settled purpose of the Federal Government is to attempt to descend the Mississippi River with an overwhelming force at an early day, in view of which fact I regard it as a matter of the highest importance to the Confederate States, as well as to Tennessee, that a large force, fully armed and equipped, be stationed in the northwestern portion of this State. We find very little difficulty in raising any reasonable number of men, but unfortunately we have not a sufficient number of small-arms for such force as will be necessary for present purposes. We have been fortunate in securing a sufficient number of heavy guns for our stationary batteries, but have little or no field artillery. We have all the means of supplying this indispensable necessity of the service if I could secure the services of an experienced ordnance officer to direct us in their manufacture and to apply the proper tests when made. If you know of such an officer, whose services can be secured, I shall be greatly obliged to you for the information.

I am informed that there are a number of regiments, armed, equipped, and ready for the field in the States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. If this be true, it seems to me that every consideration of prudence and security requires that these troops should be stationed immediately upon the northern boundary of West Tennessee. They will be more healthy, more comfortable, and more cheaply subsisted there than farther South, and if there is to be battle to prevent the invasion of the Valley of the Lower Mississippi it must be fought in the northern part of West Tennessee. I am concentrating such force there as I am able to arm, but such force as I may be able to concentrate there will, I fear, be unequal to the task of driving back so large a column of invaders as will be thrown upon us in that quarter. Indeed, if our forces and energies are not concentrated to meet the enemy at this point - if he should be permitted to lay waste to West Tennessee, flushed as he would be by this temporary success, and strengthened by the possession of Memphis as the base of his operations against the Valley below and the Southern States east of him - I am at a loss to know where the stand can be made to prevent his onward march to New Orleans. These suggestions have presented themselves to my mind with so much force that I have left authorized to submit them to you for such consideration as you may see proper to bestow upon them, after which, if you should take the same view of the matter that I have done, I shall be very happy to have your aid in inducing the States names to station their organized troops as suggested.

Very respectfully,

ISHAM G. HARRIS.

[4.]