that the prospect of immediate was in imminent, and that a requisition has been made on Alabama for 3,000 additional volunteers. Please advise me how much of all this is true, and if there is a call for more men from Alabama what is the prospect for immediate and active service? What is the term of service? If a battalion or regiment organized and officered is raised, will it be received as such as a part of the quota of volunteer troops required from Alabama? Please write me fully immediately.

Your friend,

S. F. HALE.

MONTGOMERY, April 11, 1861.

Major E. KIRBY SMITH,

Saint Augustine, Fla.:

Your presence is wanted here. Come at once.

S. COOPER.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Milledgeville, April 11, 1861.

Hon. L. P. WALKER,

Secretary of War:

SIR: Your requisition for 3,000 more volunteers, to be held in readiness to respond to any future order from your Department, has been received, and I have ordered the adjutant-general to issue a general order to the volunteer companies of this State informing them of the fact and inviting such as desire to enter the service to report immediately to this office. * I apprehend no difficulty in procuring a sufficient number to fill the requisition if they should be needed. We will do all in our power to be prepared with tents, accouterments, &c., which we have made at the Georgia penitentiary, which has to sustain itself. It will therefore require the payment of cash from the Confederate States for these supplies when furnished. It is perhaps proper that I should here mention that you will be expected to appoint some one to muster the volunteers into the service of the Confederate States while in this State, if they are destined for service out of the State, before the next regiment will be ordered to rendezvous for service out of the State. The sending of Georgia troops into other States to be mustered into service is attended with so much confusion and difficulty that I cannot recognize the instance of the regiment lately sent under peculiar circumstances as a precedent. As I wish no misunderstanding about this matter in future, I think it best to notify you of my conclusion in advance of a call for actual service, so that you may designate the officer who will perform that service in advance of a call by me for the rendezvous of the troops. I have every wish to accommodate, and Georgia will at all times be ready to do her part; but she will insist on having her rights and wishes respected when she is claiming the recognition of a principle of justice to her troops, as well as of obvious propriety. The adjutant-general or any other officer here under your appointment might perform the service.

Very respectfully, &c.,

JOSEPH E. BROWN.

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*See p. 217.

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