WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Richmond, Va., January 20, 1863.

Brigadier General HOWELL COBB,

General Commanding,&c.:

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge your letter transmitted by your adjutant. I regret that, though some misapprehension of your intended mode of proceeding in raising troops within your command, I have retarded rather than advanced the accomplishment of your end. I had supposed you would more readily raise forces from the white arms-bearing population of the counties to be designated by you for the suspension of the conscript act, by having it clearly prescribed by the muster-rolls of their organizations that they were to be confined to the local defense of their particular district, and that they might expect, when the necessity for their service no longer existed, they would speedily be disbanded, and only those of conscript ages held to further service, than by the attempt to organize companies, battalions, and regiments of volunteers for the war, liable to be hereafter transferred to other fields of service. I should still think so, but for my deference for your judgment, baset on a superior knowledge of the sentiments of your people and the circumstances under which they are called to act.

In one respect you are certainly under misapprehension, the removal of which may yet induce on your part a preference for the mode of raising troops indicated by me. You think the law allowing organizations to be formed for local defense and special service did not provide for the pay and subsistence of the men. This is not so; but on their being called into service and while serving it is expressly provided that they shall be paid and subsisted s other troops. It being expected that they would be at once emloyed and held in service by you as long as their organization were deemed important, they would thus, in the particulrs of pay and subsistence, have been on precisely the same footing as other troops. They would not, it si true, have been entitled to bounty, but this would have constituted the only difference between them and volunteers, and in this respect they would have stood on the same footing with conscripts. I am not, however, disposed to be tenacious of a plan I only suggested, because I supposed it most likely speedily to effect the raising of troops. The mode suggested by you is somewhat less acceptable, because it infringes more on the spirit of the conscript act and will require its longer (perhaps permanent) suspension within wour command, and because it introduces into the permanent service a body of raw troops and inexeperienced officers.

Still, the greatmand so many troops as possible at the earliest time, and if your plan of action will accomplish that, the Department will not only acquiesce, but be much pleased at the abandonment of the mode suggested by it. You are, therefore, free to pursue your plan, only advising me in what counties of your commnad you recommend the suspension of the act, and taking care that the meant volunteering should distinctly understand that they engage for three years or the war; and that though it is expected they will be employed in their district so long as a necessity exists for such force there, still, there is no engagement to that effect: but that, like all other troops of the Provisional Army, they will be liable to be ordered wherever and to whatever service the President may deem judicious. There is one other matter, too, that it would be well for you to have regard to in selecting counties for the suspension of the conscript act.