ordered by the Department heretofore. Having also turned over the troops of my command to Colonel Rains at Cumberland Gap, I may report myself without a command, and would respectfully ask for instructions. The companies of Gillespie's regiment are guarding the bridges.

Your obedient servant,

D. LEADBETTER,

Colonel, provisional Army, C. S.

[Indorsement.]

MARCH 11, 1862.

Respectfully submitted to Secretary of War:

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

It is presumed that General E. K. Smith is at Knoxville before this.

S. C.

[10.]

LEBANON, RUSSELL COUNTY, VA.,

March 8, 1862.

PRIVATE.]

Honorable JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States of America:

MY DEAR SIR: I want you to know what I don't want to put upon record, officially, through the War Office, and therefore I write again thus directly to you. I have been here now nearly a week, and prior to coming here I was three weeks in Wise Country, making a month in all since I left the Pound Gap, in person. I have availed myselfof every opportunity to study these people, and I tell you they are no better than the people of Kentucky on the other side of the Cumberland Range. I made a speech to the people here last Monday, country court day, to try to wake them up to the duty of enliting, as there were several officer here trying to recruit, but they stand as stolidy to accept the draff as if theyhad no interest on earth in the subject of war. Besides, if everything is not shaped to suit their notions exactly, they predict that there will be found "plenty of Union men herel" and a fellow says, "If the Confederates do (so and so) I'll be for going back to the Union; " in a work, doing, nothing, willing to do nothing which submits them to loss, or even inconvenience, and threatening, sotto voce, that if they are not indulged, or are molested, they will be for the other side. The men of property are hoarding, grain and hay and bacon, and on every side I see unwillingness to lend a helping hand and a disposition to export and to coil money out of the Government, so making speculation the order of the day.

Now, Mr. Davis, this is but the surface. Under this the soil is Union here just as it is in Northwestern Virginia, and I tell you this is too near the vitals of the Confederacy not to pay to it instant attention and the greatest care. In Wise Country I found whole districts of the country a be, and, in fact, I learned from the leading men of the country that the enemy at Pikeville had been furnished with the names of the leading men in Wise, classified as thus; Such to be killed, such to be transtported, such to be sworn and let go. They say they found this out through the son of a man who married into the family of one of the conspirators and is dependent upon his father-in-law and is setled on his land. He thinks he renders more service to his friends by being among them a silent detective than he can by