RICHMOND, December 26, 1861.

General A. SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Bowling Green, Ky.:

Floyd's brigade started in part yesterday; rest leaves to-day and to-morrow.

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

RICHMOND, VA., December 26, 1861.

General LEONIDAS POLK, Columbus, Ky.:

The funds in the Branch Bank of Kentucky are to be held by you subject to the orders of Governor Johnson, of Kentucky.*

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

RICHMOND, VA., December 26, 1861.

General LEONIDAS POLK, Columbus:

I am using every exertion to get the pay forwarded to your army. Hope to have it on the way to you to-morrow or next day.

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A., Richmond, December 26, 1861.

General A. SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Bowling Green, Ky.:

SIR: In making provision for the subsistence of the Army in your department great difficulties exist, arising from the indisposition of many parties in the border States to receive the Treasury notes or bonds of the Government in payment for supplies. This is a war for national existence, and the Army must be fed, and it is impossible to pay for its food otherwise than in our national currency. True friends to our cause will nowhere refuse to receive that currency, and our enemies, whom, under the laws of war we have a right to lay under contribution, cannot, of course, be listened to when they ask that our currency be sold at a heavy discount in order to pay them in gold. Major Jackson, your chief commissary, informs the Department that in some cases parties have succeeded in extorting a discount of 40 per cent. You will at once perceive that a submission to such demands is equivalent to laying down our arms. I have, therefore, to request that you give orders in your department that all subsistence stores and supplies be paid for in the currency of the Government, and that, if prices are advanced for the purpose of covering any discount, you allow to parties from whom purchases are made only such price as would be the fair value in gold of what they sell. In other words, let the necessary supplies be impressed, if not otherwise attainable, and paid for at their cash coin value in Confederate notes. I inclose you extract of a letter written to Major Jackson by the Commissary-General some six weeks ago, in which the same view is taken. I see no other resource.

Your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

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*See Richmond to Benjamin, December 16, p. 770.

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