review our position you could organize a force to relieve us of some of the horrors of raids and from the immediate vicinity of the hated enemy. From undoubted information received daily they have a very small force at each of those places, and often mostly negroes, and that a very small force headed by another Anthony Wayne, with fixed bayontes and a concert of action, could on the same night storm each of those places at night, as he did that of Stony Point in the old Revolution, with very little loss. [To] surprise Vicksburg alone, where we could have a safe point to cross the river, would be invaluable to the Confederacy. There have been soldiers enough captured in attempting to cross the river to take and hold the place. Every day we hear of some poor soldier that has not seen home for three years rushing into captivity. Some, failing to have money or to get a skiff, swim the river to be captured at last. Take Vicksburg and this will be all be stopped.

It is said by those in authority that if we take the place we could not hold it. It was not so easily taken before; let us prove it. Governor Clark, with his militia and the reserve force, could hold it or compel General Grant to flank it again with 120,000 men, and from what we hear he has not time to do it. Just now 1,000 men could take it any night and hold it against any force they now have on the river. Take Vicksburg and push the garrisons below into the river, and we will hear no more of the soldier being captured and our citizens selling cotton, utterly demoralizing everything it touches. Washington was met with this difficulty of trading with the enemy and only stopped it by threatening to have the offending parties shot. Drive those garrisons into the river, everyting will be relieved. Small cavalry commands and scouts eem to aggravate the evil. The scouts are mostly captured, and whenever they want to plunder they unite and drive off the command. The only effectual remedy is to take Vicksburg. We hear of Major Bradford with Captaover's commands organizing as scouts to protect us. When they come they will meet with the same difficulty. The cotton specualrts, with their false alarms and information to the enemy, will make them useless. Better, in my opinion, to have them detailed in squads, one to each gun-boat, with instructions to follow them up and either board them or blow them up by torpedoes. The enemy have shown us how in the recent case in North Carolina. I have myself the knowledge of a plan that looks well in theory, but may fail in practice, never being able to have it tested. it consists of merely stretching a rope above the boat, using the current to lodge it against their cable, with a heavy weight at one end and a torpedo at the other, and making the current fire it off. We should stop at no expense to clear the river. It would of itself end the war. Have we not skill and ingenuity enough to do it? I believe we have. Pardon the presumption of offering you advice, which I know you will do. Our wavering citizens here need something to restore them. It would reunite the Confederacy and electrify the outside world. Now is the time. Let me give you an incident. A celebrated Senator stopped in the neighborhood during our darkest hour in the excitement of Hood and Johnston. I called upon him, and after listening to his praise of what he said, instinctively I pulled off my hat all alone and gave three cheers for the President. The result has realized my conviction. Take Vicksburg - I know you can do it - and the same old man will pull off his hat again and give three times three cheers again for the man he delights to honor above all others.

Yours, &c.,

N. JEFFERIES.