closing avenues of information to us which are open to them. Parties who fail to get passports at Bowling Green may at present return here and pass securely off without them. I think my position is such that I ought to have from fifty to one hundred mounted men for scouts and pickets. I have to-night sent out a party of ten mounted men with instructions to take the Greenville road, and approach that town as near as they can with safety and return by the Rochester road. The proprietor of a small machine-shop here represents that he is in treaty with a party who is to convert it into an armory. If this arrangement is carried out, I can get my guns repaired here. I am promised a definite reply in a few days.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOS. H. HUNT,

Colonel, Commanding.

P. S.-Besides the guns above asked for, I need 175 cartridge boxes' 300 cap boxes, 200 belts, 250 bayonet scabbards, 250 knapsacks, and 500 haversacks.

[4.]

CAMP ZOLLICOFFER, November 4, 1861.

General A. S. JOHNSTON:

DEAR SIR: Colonel McClellan informs me this morning that the Federal troops are moving in direction of this section of the State, from which I infer they aim to penetrate East Tennessee by way of Jamestown. The number now advancing can be easily repelled. They are only 1,800 strong; but these forces are perhaps only advance of the main force, as they are cavalry. I write you this to urge on you the importance of sending with the greatest dispatch a few pieces of cannon to this locality. If properly planted so as to command our mountain passes, in all defensive operations they would be of more service than a regiment of infantry. I hope you will send us a few pieces with the utmost dispatch. Will you pardon me for so frequently calling your attention to this fact, as I do so because I am impressed with the importance of this action soon on your part. Delay might render artillery unnecessary.

I am, yours, in great haste,

JOHN P. MURRAY,

Colonel Twenty-eighth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 206.
Richmond, November 5, 1861.

* * * *

V. The seven companies of Virginia Volunteers under Colondl Moore, and the three companies of Virginia Volunteers at Pound Gap, will forthwith proceed to Prestonburg, Ky., and report to Brigadier General H. Marshall, who will organize them into a regiment as the Twenty-ninth Virginia Volunteers, the field officers of which, Colonel A. C. Moore, Lieutenant Colonel William Leigh, and Major James Giles, will immediately join the command.

* * * *

By command of the Secretary of War:

John WITHERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

[4.]