ADJUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Richmond, June 25, 1861.

Brigadier General WM. J. HARDEE, Memphis, Tenn.:

SIR: Herewith you will receive the appointment of brigadier-general of provisional forces in the service of the Confederate States. Your command will embrace that portion of Arkansas lying west of the White and Black Rivers and north of the Arkansas River to the Missouri line. The general purpose of this assignment is to watch over and protect the country within the limits referred to, and also that part of the State of Missouri contiguous thereto. Besides the regiment from Arkansas under the command of Colonel Hindman, recently ordered there, it is the purpose of the Department to send an additional force of about 3,000 men in that direction. Your will establish your headquarters at such point within the district referred to as will best subserve the purpose of your command.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

PINE BLUFF, June 25, 1861.

Honorable L. P. WALKER:

Before leaving I understood of you that the incumbents of the Indian agencies west of Arkansas would be continued. I believed it wise. I beg of you earnestly to send them their appointments promptly.

The movement of our Indians into our Confederacy will be natural and easy if under the lead of the officers and agents they are accustomed to be led and advised by; but strike them out, put in new men, and then propose to change their allegiance, with war before them, and with doubts as to their annuities the debts due them, and the nature of their own governments hereafter, and a new and necessarily untrained and ignorant set of agents to explain, to control, or to advise them, and it will all be unfortunate-very, very unfortunate.

My old friend the Honorable D. Hubbard is sick, and stays at Dr. Griffith's, at Fort Smith. With his good heart it is to be expected he will be desirous to support Dr. Griffith's wishes, and Dr. Griffith wants to be appointed superintendent in place of E. Rector. Do not allow this to be done. Hold everything as it is until peace and unity are attained, and then make all the changes you think proper; but not now-not now, by all manner of means.

I do earnestly beg you to keep your agencies as they were. They are good and true men, and popular and qualified with the tribes and their business. Restore and commission Elias Rector, superintendent; John Crawford, Cherokee agent; William Quesenbury, Creek agent; Samuel M. Rutherford, Seminole agent; and Matthew Leeper, Witchita agent; and if Cooper has resigned (which I fear is the case), appoint Richard P. Pulliam (who is the next best living man on earth for the place, I believe) as agent of the Choctaw. With this programme you will have peace and success; without it, no one can tell your troubles or our misfortunes on this frontier.

If you raise an Indian regiment, I commend to you J. W. Washburne for quartermaster. He is a favorite with them (particularly with the Creeks), and is a man of talent and capacity.

In conclusion, it is proper, as I am so much of a stranger to you, that