of the law be complied with, disagreeable complaint be spared me, and more of content be assured under the trials to which you look forward. It is needless to specify further. I have been able in writing to you to speak freely, and you have no past associations to district the judgment to be passed upon the views presented.

I have made and am making inquires as to the practicability of getting a corps of negroes for laborers, to aid in the construction of an entrenched line in rear of your present position.

Your remarks on the want of efficient staff officers is realized in all their force, and I hope, among the elements which constitute a staff officer for volunteers, you have duly estimated the qualities of forbearance and urbanity. Many of the privates are men of high social position, of scholarship, and fortune. Their pride furnishes the motive for good conduct, and, if wounded, is turned from an instrument of good to one of great power for evil.

General Lovell proposes to leave in the morning for New Orleans.

Nothing has been heard of the armada, which sailed some time since for the subjugation of the Southern sea-port inhabitants.

Bragg made a descent upon Santa Rosa, of which you will see in the journals the telegraphic report..

It will give me pleasure to hear from you frequently and fully.

Very truly, your friend,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

HEADQUARTERS GREENBRIER RIVER, October 12, 1861.

General S. COOPER,
Adjutant and Inspector General C. S. Army:

GENERAL: I feel it to be my imperative duty most respectfully to direct the attention of the Department of War to the condition of the staff departments of this division of the Northwestern Army. There is no commissioned quartermaster upon this line. Major Corley, the quartermaster for the Northwestern Army, has not been upon it for upwards of two months. The suffering resulting for the want of transportation, and especially from the want of forage for horses, has been almost incalculable. The public animals have been so reduced as to be at times wholly unfit for active service, and that in a country supposed to abound in grass and grain. I have labored against these difficulties to the best of my ability and to the full extent of my authority, but that authority is limited, and my remoteness front he headquarters of the army renders it impossible, I suppose, for its responsible staff officers to see to the prompt action and systematic movement of their respective departments.

The cold weather is already upon us, and with a winter climate like this, with more than 70 miles between the army and its depot of supplies, with the connecting road becoming daily worse and worse, and with the country immediately adjacent already exhausted, unless new energy be infused into the staff department it is not easy to conceive the amount of loss, embarrassment, and suffering which must in a short time be developed.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. R. JACKSON,

Brigadier-General, &c.