hook, but I should prefer to have an official position. If I can get a commission, with orders to report to General Buckner, I can make myself serviceable, and should like to be chief of ordnance, which I understand all about. If a position is given to me I would be extremely obliged if you would telegraph me the order to report to General Buckner, and send it to me here, care of Colonel Stevenson. We shall have some hard fighting, I expect, in the State, as we have three strong States right opposite; but I have no fears of the result. Whatever turns up, now my family is safe here, is a matter of little consequence. I should gladly see my possession in Louisville blazing, if necessary to aid in roasting Prentice, Guthrie, and Harney.

Yours, truly,

BLANTON DUNCAN.

[4.]

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 157.
Richmond, September 19, 1861.

* * * *

III. The following regiments will hereafter constitute a brigade, the command of which is assigned to the command of Brigadier General L. P. Walker, Provisional Army, who will proceed with his brigade, as soon as it may be practicable, to report for duty to General A. S. Johnston, commanding at Memphis, Tenn.: Fourteenth Regiment Alabama Volunteers, Colonel T. J. Judge; Seventeenth Regiment Alabama Volunteers, Colonel T. H. Watts; Eighteenth Regiment Alabama Volunteers, Colonel E. C. Bullock; Nineteenth Regiment Alabama Volunteers, Colonel Wheeler.

* * * *

By command of the Secretary of War:

John WITHERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

[4.]

BOWLING GREEN, September 19, 1861.

General A. S. JOHNSTON:

Are my orders imperative to destroy the Green River bridge immediately, and to draw in my advanced forces at once? I have made arrangements to do so. Unless the military necessity is great the destruction of so fine a work would injure us very much politically. Hawes has rallied about 300 Southern men from Barren and 100 from Hardin Counties. Hawes reports Rousseau with 1,700 men on Muldraugh's Hill, probably at the mouth of Salt-River.*

S. B. BUCKNER,

Brigadier-General.

[4.]

Memorandum of instructions to Colonel Hanson.

HEADQUARTERS CENTRAL DIVISION OF Kentucky,
Bowling Green, September 19, 1861.

Colonel Hanson will advance with the remaining companies of his regiment to support Colonel Hawes. He will distribute guards at any important bridges and positions, including a guard at Cave City. He

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*For reply, see Mackall to Buckner, VOL. IV, p. 416.

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