J. Y. Dashiell to John Bankhead Magruder, June 4, 1863

Maj. Gen. J. B. MAGRUDER,

GENERAL: I am instructed by His Excellency the Governor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, making a requisition upon the Governor of Texas’ for 10,000 troops to defend the State.

Recognizing, as he does in their full force, the reasons adduced by you for this necessity, 1 am directed to state that the Governor promptly and cordially responds affirmatively to it.

While the military law of the State presents to the Governor no alternative, but requires that, ”upon a call upon the Governor by the general commanding this department, the Governor shall, by proclamation, order into camp for any one or more brigades a sufficient number of troops to fill such requisition,” yet bis sense of the imminence of the danger and his approval of the call will be manifested by his energetic action and the alacrity with which the troops will rendezvous at the various camps in the several brigades. As the Legislature of the State omitted to make provision for the regulation of slave labor for military and other purposes by impressment, the Governor is gratified to learn that the Congress of the Confederate States has attempted to remedy the evil, and, in common with every other slaveholder of this State, he looks with confidence to you, that you will exercise a rigid surveillance over the bureau to which you intrust this duty of the impressment of slave labor, causing regular and pro rata details to be made, that the injustice heretofore operating upon a patriotic few will be speedily removed, and the burden extended, by an equitable apportionment, over the entire body of slaveholders.

Should the Governor’s co-operation in the furtherance or accomplishment of this most desirable object be deemed necessary or expedient, it will be cheerfully rendered.

For your generous offer to furnish facilities in conscripts and conscript teams, to enable the patriotic associations throughout the State properly and efficiently to discharge the great and responsible duty of procuring and distributing the needful articles to alleviate and remove the sufferings of the families of our absent soldiers, in their name and in that of every worthy Texan he begs to return you his sincere thanks.

Fully appreciating your kindness, the Governor tenders, in behalf of the gentlemen controlling the military resources of the State, their acknowledgments; and I am further directed to assure the major-general commanding that, so long as he continues the Governor of Texas, ill the resources of the State will be held subject to the Confederate commander for its successful defense, and consequently to the benefit of the entire Confederacy.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,