larly than I can write them, and I commend him to your fullest confidence.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, Your Excellency's obedient servant,

STERLING PRICE,

Major-General, Commanding Mo. S. G.

HEADQUARTERS DIVISION,
Van Buren, Ark., December 16, 1861.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant-General C. S. Army, Richmond, Va.:

GENERAL: Since my communication of day before yesterday I have heard more of the disaffection of the Cherokees and of the rapidly-in creasing force of Hopoeithlayohola, the Creek chief. I have deemed the troubles there of sufficient importance to send additional force, and will myself take command and march against Hopeithlayohola. I start to-morrow, and will march with upwards of 2,000 men. With this force and Colonel Cooper's I hope soon to settle matters in the nation.*

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES McINTOSH.

HDQRS. FIRST MIL. DIST., MISSOURI STATE GUARD,
Camp New Madrid, Mo., December 16, 1861.

Major General LEONIDAS POLK, C. S. A., Columbus, Ky.:

DEAR GENERAL: I would be pleased if you would send down a mustering officer as soon as possible, with such instructions as you may be pleased to give him, in regard to the matter upon which I conversed with you a few days since. I would draw your attention again to the fact that a transfer and reorganization of the Missouri State Guard is not like the formation of new companies, from the fact that many captains who cannot probably produce more than 40 or 50 men to the mustering officer may have absent on leave, or sick, or on duty more than enough to make a full company. Therefore I would ask that you would either allow the mustering officer or myself a "margin," when from known circumstances we have reason to believe that a full company will be raised.

My instructions arrived this evening from Major-General Price, and he has been pleased to approve of my conduct during the past six months, and desires us to enter the Confederate service as soon as possible, and the eloquent appeals which appear in his Camp Journal will certainly have great weight in inducing men to re-enlist.

Many of my men are anxious to return home for a short time, and, for fear of the weather preventing their return in time, it would be well if you could station another regiment here, even though it be one of the unarmed regiments. They could assist in building such fortifications as you may desire to build here. I have discovered by experience that we cannot work the negro and our kind of soldiers on the same work at the same time; and, as the number of negroes which I

*See operations in the Indian Territory, November 19, 1861-January 4, 1862, pp. 4-33.