and commissary should be posted at Huntsville immediately, and supplies of clothing sent them without delay. I beg you also to have shipped here immediately clothing for 5,000 men. The State can furnish jackets and pants for several thousland, and will aid as far as in her power to clothe all. I hope the proper officer of the War Department will give these matters prompt attention, and I further ask instructions to the Confederate officers here to respond efficiently and promptly to my requisitions in aid of the organizations in progress.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

John GILL SHORTER.

[First indorsement.]

Referred to Quartermaster-General for information.

[J. P. BENJAMIN.]

[Second indorsement.]

As several thousand pants and jackets can be supplied in Alabama, 3,000 jackets and pants, 5,000 shoes, and authorized undergarments, are this day ordered to be sent to Montgomery. The station at Huntsville will be supplied when requisitions come in from that place.

[A. C. MYERS,]

Quartermaster-General.

[6.]

KNOXVILLE, TENN., March 7, 1862.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: On receiving your orders by telegraph to re-enfore

Cumberland Gap I proceeded to that place with the North Carolina Twenty-ninth Regiment and the Georgia Third Battalion. Major Camp's

battalion of Tennessee Volunteers had been sent forward before the receipt of your orders. The Mississippi Ninth and the Fifth Georgia, having been placed at Morristown, were also ordered forward to the gap under the request of Colonel Rains through Major Lucas, asking for all the troops that could be spared. A part of Captain Latrobe's artillery company, with two howitzers, marched to the gap from Knoxville, making, with the artillery attached to the Georgia Third Battalion, a re-enforcement of six pieces. After encountering the most extraordinary floods in the Holston, Clinch, and Powell Rivers these troops arrived at the gap from the 25th to the 28th ultimo, and found everything quiet. Seeing no occasion there for my own services, I have to report my return to this place. The time of the Mississippi Ninth will expire within there weeks and Camp's battalion should be withdrawn to Morristown to make up a regiment. The force at the gap will still be ample-four and a half regiments, with six pieces of field artillery. The defensive works at the gap are well locatd, but not yet wholly finished. The highest points within a reosonable distance have been strongly occupied in order that the lower and more efficient works may not be commanded by the enemy. The garrison is well supplied with arms, ammunition, and meat, but in the present state of the roads will with diffcultt be supplied with bread. I conjecture that no attack upon East Tennessee will be made from that side, but that the enemy's forces are concentrating upon the Mississippi. Not knowing the views of the Department, and having received no orders for defensive dispositions in East Tennessee, and being daily in expectation of the arrival of a general officer who would assume the command, I have refreined from undertaking anything not specially