Executive Office,
Jackson, Miss., May 3, 1861.
Jackson, Miss., May 3, 1861.
His Excellency President Jefferson Davis:
Dear Sir: The troops from Mississippi at Pensacola are sending to me for tents, clothing, arms, medicine, &c. I am sending them whatever is in my power to furnish. The expenses of forwarding our troops, arms, ammunition, tents, camp equipage, clothing, &c. , has so depleted our treasury that I am unable to pay the expenses of calling the remaining troops into camp for instruction, which they very much need. Is it proposed by the Confederate Government to refund to the States these advances made by them for the troops sent into service? If so, please have me informed when and how. We have now about eighty companies anxious to get into service and clamoring to be ordered into camp for drill and instruction. The ten cavalry companies provided for in our ordinance were promptly filled, some of them well armed, and drilling daily. They began to despair of being called for, and are asking to be permitted to change their arms for infantry; but I will not trouble you with the detail of these matters. Suffice it to say, all Mississippi is in a fever to get to the field and hail an order to march as the greatest favor you can bestow on them, and if you take the field they could not be restrained.
Governor Winston, of Alabama, wishes a fighting place in the picture. I know him well; he is capable of doing the Confederacy much and valuable service, and many will be trusted with command in this war who are not as faithful, as wise, or as brave as I know him to be. Any aid you may render him in getting a position in the field will be gratefully remembered by me and worthily bestowed on him. I am putting a battery at Vicksburg, but hope to move it several hundred miles up the river before one of the guns is fired at our enemies. I hope you will cause our Confederacy to act like James Fitz-James when beset by Highland foes, “no timid deer, but lion of the hunt aware.”
In hopes of an early additional requisition, I am, very respectfully, your friend,
JOHN J. PETTUS.