am sure you must approve. Such disposition of his force ca be made, too, as to insure protection in a great degree to our people against any sudden raids from Northeast Mississippi, while he will at the same time be able, in an emergency, to re-enforce Pollard or Mobile. Let me explain to you, or rather ramined you, how this command can be advantageously posted for the protection and defense of this State. With the condition of affairs in the Tennessee Valley, and the location of troops for its defense, you are as familiar as I, and I need not specify as to them. Coming over the mountains you visit Tuscaloosa, where are located a large cotton factory, and tennery, and shoe establishment, and iron foundry. Here is our State University, with its numerous and expensive buildings, library, and apparatus. It is a military institute. The corps of cadets numbers about 150, and are thoroughly drilled, armed, and equipped for infantry service. I have furnished the corps with a section [of] artillery, iron guns, cast in Tuscaloosa, and they have a good supply of ammunition, and are held ready for field service at any moment.

Leaving Tuscaloosa, and proceeding south upon the western line of Bibb County, you come upon the Bibb County factory, one of the largest in the State. Proceeding in a western and southwestern d irection from the factory, you make the towns of Gainesville and Demopolis, about fifty to sixty or seventy miles, respectively, from the factory. From Gainesville, as well as from Demopolis, there is a railroad connection at Meridian in Mississippi. At Gainesville the Confederate Government has a hospital, work-shops, and valuable stores, and at Demopolis there are a large quantity of supplies of ordnance and other Government property. Demopolis is connected by railroad with Selma. Here the investments by the Government are immense. Besides the Alabama Arsenal, removed to this city from Vernon, the Government has established there an extensive naval foundry, where it hopses very soon to cast the heaviest ordnance. Quantities of shot and shell are already beingturned out there, and before a great while it is expected to roll there heavy iron-plating for our men of war. Besides these important works, the State is now establishing there a manufactory of spinning cards, cotton and woolen, and there are various private shops and enterprises which are all essential and contributing articles for the use of the Army. Montgomery is about sixty miles by land from Selma. Here is our State Capitol, arsenal, and military stores, such as remain to us. Here are extensive hospitals and purveyor's depot of medical supplies, quartermaster's and commissary and ordnance stores of the Confederacy, and also naval stores of immense value, which if destroyed could not be replaced in the Confederacy. Here, moreover, are the buildings and fixtures of the Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company, which contain machinery for the manufacture of the Enfield rifle, not excelled in value and completeness by any in the Confederacy. Both in this city and in Selma there are railroad depots and machine shops for manufacturing cars and repairing engines. Above Montgomery sixteen m iles, at Wetumpka, on the north, is the State penitentiary, containing 225 convicts, 25 of whom I received about ten days since from Governor Pettus, forwarded from the penitentiary of Mississippi at Jackson, on account of their open defiance and treasonable purposes. West of Montgomery, in the county of Autauga, and on the old mail route to Selma, are the flourishing villages of Autaugaville and Prattville, known all over the State for their extneisve cotton and woolen mills. East of Montgomery, and few miles north of the Montgomery and West Point Railroad, and on the Tallapoosa River, is Tallassee, another manufacturing town from