HDQRS. FIFTH MIL. DIST., DEPT. MISS. AND EAST. La.,
Panola, April 17, 1863.

Major MEMMINGER, Acting Assistant Adjutant-GENERAL:

MAJOR: I have to-day received official copies of the correspondence between Lieutenant-General Pemberton and Governor Pettus, in relation to the organization into regiments and battalions of the State troops within the limits of this district. * In justice to myself and other Confederate officers acting under my command, I feel called upon to say that the misapprehension which has arisen upon this subject grew out of the fact that the instructions received by me from Governor Pettus and General [T. C.] Tupper were not sufficiently explicit. I certainly understood from them that I was to organize these troops, or I should never have attempted to do so, or in fact taken any command or control over them, at least until after they had been formed into battalions and regiments and turned over to me. Governor Pettus is mistaken in saying that these troops were not being paid or fed by the Confederate States. My chief commissary had furnished them with money and my ordnance officer with ammunition.

I have to complain, moreover, that after Major-General Tuppler had, by a general order published in the newspapers, ordered all those companies to report to me, and while I was in the act of organizing them, his successor, General Gholson, came into my district, and without notice to me, without any communication of any sort whatsoever with me, and without my knowledge or consent, ordered six companies outside the limits of my district, and the first information I ever had of any such order was in the refusal of some of these companies to obey my orders previously issued. I think you will agree with me that this was a very serious military discourtesy, to say the least. I understand Governor Pettus' position now to be that I am to have no command nor exercise any control over these troops until after they are organized into battalions and transferred to me, and I shall govern myself accordingly.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES R. CHALMERS.

HDQRS. DEPT. MISS. AND E. La., Jackson, MISS., April 17, 1863.

Lieutenant-Colonel [W. H.] DISMUKES,
Nineteenth Ark. Regiment, Comdg. Big Black Bridge, Bovina P. O.:

COLONEL: The lieutenant-general commanding directs, if you have a sufficient guard for the Big Black and the other bridges between that and Vicksburg, which guarding must be thoroughly done, without the detail lately sent from the Fourteenth Mississippi, it will be relieved and ordered back to Jackson to rejoin its regiment.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. C. TAYLOR,

Aide-de-Camp.

JACKSON, April 17, 1863.

Major-General FORNEY, Grand Gulf:

Take command of Maury's DIVISION. Maury relieved, and ordered to East Tennessee. Bowen commands your old DIVISION.

J. C. PEMBERTON.

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* See pp 737, 740, 741, 745.

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