damage them. A large force can be put in active service in this way, and I believe incalculable mischief can be done the enemy by them. At least two-thirds of those living in the river counties will agree at once for such work, and when such commands are organized, those who are rebellious in those counties can be brought to justice. If possible, experienced artillerists now in the service from those counties should be commissioned for such work. Men who live there and have not done any service up to this time, I think, would, if appointed to fight in that section, give too many stay-at-home furloughs to damage the enemy. I think policy requires that an effort be mae to get service out of those fellows on the river. If that method fails, it will cost more than their services will be worth to conscript them, and when conscripted and forced to Bragg's army they will desert every day. A great number of scoundrels from the army are now in the swamp counties ready to rob anybody, and take the whole population together, I candidly believe they will damage the Federals more on the river, if delegrate for that work, than they will in any other way. With the right sort of leaders, I am certain the Federal transportations will suffer seriously.

Captain Floyd, who has been fighting pretty much on his own hook, and has equipped a company of fifty men by preying on the enemy along the river, is a most daring and venturesome officer, with a set of young men ready for anything that can be proposed. He is disconnected from the Blythe and Collins battalion, which is about being turned over the General Forrest, and will join one in the river service. I could get up 1,000 men in the swamp section directly if no interference from conscript officers deranges my operations. Under existing orders the officers of the Conscript Bureau and required to forward everybody for examination. Colonel Patrick, at Grenda, has agreed not to hinder me in any way with his duties unless instructed to do so by Colonel Preston, at Montgomery, to whom he has sent a certificate of my appointment for special service, and ask that those I associate with me and properly enlist be not disturbed. I have written to D. W. Hughes, at Montgomery, who is an old acquanintance, and the inventor of the best breech-loading arrangement or light artillery now in use, to know if his invention can be applied to double shotguns. I can take twelve small howitzers and 800 double shotgun with a few rifles and raise a force in this valley in a short time that will accomplish anything desired, I care not how much, within the next two months. I would use liquid fire-shells for the guns, and no boat could pass me. With breech-loading doulbe shotguns any force of marine cavalry the enemy can penetrate the canbreak with would be destroyed. There is considerable cotton trade carried on with the Federals along the river; but I do not see how it can be prevented. It might be taken advantage of to tame some of the staemers that are a little too wild to come to the shore. Everybody in this section sells cotton. I could not to-day name any one innocent of trading with the enemy's flag, yet a vast amount of that trade is beneficial to the Confederacy. Very few of these men are friendly enough toward the enemy to treasure up their currency. Nobody wants the greenbacks except for immediate use. our money is not worth anything in the river counties, for it will not buy a pound of salt or a pair of shoes. If our currency would pass muster, every man in the bottom would prefer it to any other currency. These people have never traded anywhere but on the river. The party that uses the river will secure the trade of the people on the banks, and nothing can be done to change the order of things but whip the Federals away or whip the natives out of those counties. I believe with proper effort