EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Montgomery, Ala., March 4, 1862.

Honorable E. S. DARGAN:

DEAR SIR: I inclose a letter to the Secretary of War, which I wish you to read and deliver in person and use your powerful influence in behalf of my application. I need not urge on you its importance. I fear before this reaches you that we will be left entirely to the mercies of the Yankee fleets in the Gulf. You will have fuller and perhaps later information from Mobile that I can give you. All the Confederate land troops have been removed, and if the enemy land in they can flank the batteries and march right into the city. Pensacola is being dismantled and will be abandoned. Our people in the interior will do the best in our power for protection. I could call out the militia, but they are badly organized, have no officers of military skill, and but few good arms, and the State has but little ammunition and no commissary or quartermaster's stores. If the Government will arm as fast as I organize the new regiments, and employ them for the defense of Alabama, it will help some. Let me hear from you.

Very truly, yours,

John GILL SHORTER.

[Inclosure.]

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Montgomery, Ala., March 4, 1862.

Honorable J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: In response to my proclamation for twelve new regiments our people are volunteering very forably, and I hope to have a number of regiments in camp in a few weeks. The contest for position by patriotic and ambitions men will cause some little delay, which, though much to be regretted, cannto be avioded under the rule for election of officers. I am acepting cavalry for one regiment only, and am urging the men to arm with the double-barrel shotguns, but fear that many cannot be had. They must have sabers, which the Confederacy will furnish. Captain Wagner, ordnance officer here, should have them ready in two or three weeks, and saddles and other equipments. They should have pistols, if possible. And now, my dear sir, as Pensacola is to be abandoned, and all the land troops to be removed from Mobile, will you not furnish arms for my infantry regiments and let them go to Mobile as fast as I can organize them? The knowledge or assurance of this fact would greatly stimulate enlistments. So soon as our people learn that our Gulf coast is abandoned to the enemy they will become greatly excited, and a prompt supply of arms will tend largely to reasure the people. We are destitute here now, having sent out of the State all the public arms the State had, and contributed them, with our brave troops, to the common cause. I feel most profoundly the misfortuness which have recently befallen our arms, and the imperious necessity of recovering our losses in Tennessee and Kentucky, and Alabama will bend all her energies to meet the demand upon her patriotism; but at the same time, as far as it is within the power of the Confederate Government, I erneastly insist upon every possible contribution for the defense of Mobile and the Alabama River. There is an element of population bordering this river and its tributaries which it is of vital importance to preserve intact.

I have established several camps in South Alabama and two in North Alabama-one at Huntsville, and one at La Grange. A quartermaster