after you had penned it, and in fact until near the close of the past year, at a period when my whole time was filled with the military preparations to meet our vindictive enemy, who seems to threaten this department with another invasion. This, I trust, will explain to you in the most satisfactory manner the cause of my long delay in replying to your letter. Permit me, general, in conclusion to offer you my fullest assurance that every effort will be made on my part and on the part of all my subordinate officers to reciprocate most fully the many kindnesses and courtesies so uniformly extended by you both to the civil and military functionaries of our Government and, if possible, by our acts to cause the friendly relations now existing to become still more cordial and to increase in strength every day.

I have the honor to remain, general, with sentiments of the highest esteem, your most obedient servant,

E. KIRBY SMITH,

General.

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT

Shreveport, February 10, 1865

Senor J. M. AGUILAR,
Superior Political Prefect, Monterey, Mexico:

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your gratifying communication of November 5, 1864. Let me assure you that your warm expressions of sympathy in behalf of our noble cause were received by me with the most heartfelt pleasure. I have also caused your letter to be laid before His Excellency the President to whom such manifestations of friendly interest by distinguished officers of foreign Governments cannot be but agreeable. Your communication would have been answered at an earlier day, but it was many weeks after it was written before it was received by me, and the engrossing nature of my military occupations have not always allowed me the time that I might desire to devote to those things which would be agreeable to me. To this and to no other cause attribute my silence, and accept my apologies. Your exceedingly complimentary allusion to the Honorable john A. Quinterro, the agent of our Government at Monterey, is gratifying in the extreme, and it is to be hoped that he will continue in the future as he has in the past so to conduct himself as to secure the friendship and esteem of those officers of the Imperial Government with whom he has been officially connected, and also to possess in the fullest degree the confidence of his own Government. I have not the power to fully clothe Major F. Ducayet with the agency for which you so warmly recommend him, but I have used every exertion to secure the position for him, and trust soon to be successful.

With the hope that the friendly relations now existing between our Government and that of the Empire may grow still stronger, and with my kindest wishes for your own health and prosperity, I remain, with sentiments of the highest respect, your obedient servant,

E. KIRBY SMITH,

General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT, Numbers 9.
Shreveport, La., February 10, 1865.

I. All communications addressed to department headquarters should state distinctly the post-office, county, and State to which answers are