and officered, such company or companies can be ordered into these regiments and still maintain their company organizations and retain their officers. I do not desire any commissioned officers to be ordered here except such as belong to organized commands, and are ordered here with their comands, and all troops ordered here shoudl be distinctly informed that it is permanent until otherwise ordered by the Secretary of War. The gallantry of the troops of this division, shown wherever and whenever they have encountered their oft=met and hated foes, the despoilers of their homes and oppressors of their families and friends, and their patriotism and devotion, as shown so conspicuously at and since the capitulation of Vicksburg, and their adent desire to keep their present organizaitons distinct and separate, and to have their thinned ranks filled, that they may continue to represent in force, in the gallant army of our loved and young Confederacy, their loved and native Missouri--their home now groaning under an unparalleled despotism--and my own convictions as to the very best interests of the service, impel me to appeal most earnestly to you for the immediate consummation of this application.

Trusting that this application may be cordially approved and receive earliest practicable attention, and that the Trans-Mississippi Missourians now at Camp Lee and Demopolis, Ala., or elsewhere, as well as those who may hereafter arrive, may be ordered to and permanently attached to this command, I am, general, your obedient servant,

F. M. COCKRELL,

Brigadier-General, First Missouri Brigade, and now

Commanding Bowen's old Division, Missouri Troops.

[First indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS,
Demopolis, Ala., September 30, 1863.

Approved and respectfully forwarded.

W. J. HARDEE,

Lieutenant-General.

[Second indorsement.]

OCTOBER 14, 1863.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL:

I am anxious to recruit this veteran brigade, and, if practicable, to maintain its honored organizations. Such orders as is desired may be granted if there be any Missourians at Camp Lee or arriving with exchanged prisoners to whom it would apply, but if such men belong to other organizations they must be temporarily assigned, unless with their own consent they are transferred. If assigned, let it be till further orders.

J. A. S.,

Secretary.

[26.]

RICHMOND, VA., September 14, 1863.

General S. JONES,

Bristol, Va.:

General Corse has gone with his brigade to your support. You can send orders to him at Wytheville. The surrender of Cumberland Gap, if true, will affect your dispositions materially. You will exercise a large discretion and report frequently and fully.*

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

[30.]

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*For reply, see Jones to Davis, VOL. XXX, Part IV, p. 652.

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