James A. Seddon to His Execelleney President DAVIS, February 26, 1864

Richmond, Va., February 26, 1864.

His Excellency CHARLES CLARK, Governor of Mississippi: Sir: Hon. Mr. Watson, of your State, has communicated your wish to be definitely informed as to the views of the Department regarding the operation of the recent legislation of Congress on the militia as existing in an organized condition in your State. Some of those organizations, it is understood, were constituted under an emergency with the consent of the President, and included men at the time subject to conscription. Another portion of the men, by the recent act of Congress, it is supposed, have likewise been subjected to like liability.

Mr. Watson represents that your preference would be for the retention, as organized militia, of all or some of these companies, and has desired me thus to convey to you the views of the Department.

My convictions of expediency are decided against the employment of troops under distinct governments in the same field of action, and it is believed that, as the armies of the Confederacy must necessarily be the larger and more regular organizations and be under more efficient discipline, and in more continuous action, it is very desirable that all capable of military duty should be in some form embodied in the Confederate armies, and subject to the direction of our Commander-in-Chief. My deference, however, for your views, and the desire I unfeignedly have to cordially co-operate with the Governors of each State in the great struggle in which we are engaged, would cause me to yield my own judgment if the laws I am bound to administer did not seem to me to control the matter.

In the Constitution, as I interpret it, three classes of troops only were contemplated—the armies of the Confederacy, troops of war, which a State may keep in time of war, and the militia. The militia, in its wide and constitutional sense, I consider the population capable of arms, which constitutes the material out of which the Confederate Army and the State troops are to be drawn, or which, if not so engrossed, may be organized and employed in temporary service as militia, more strictly called. The power of the Confederacy to raise armies enables it, in my opinion, to engross the whole of the militia in its widest sense, but not to encroach upon or withdraw from the troops of war which a State may have regularly employed. In other words, I consider the Army of the Confederacy and the troops of war may either have been constituted from the militia or the arms-bearing population, and that when so constituted they are, respectively, the Army of the Confederacy and the army of the State. As to these, when constituted, neither government can encroach on the other; but the militia, unless appropriated as troops of war regularly organized, are liable to the superior claims of the Confederate Government.

Such superior claims have been exercised upon all between the ages of seventeen and fifty years, under the recent act of Congress, and consequently all State organizations that are not troops of war, permanently enlisted as such, but militia, whether organized or at large, are subjected to conscription. Those between eighteen and forty-five are devoted to filling the old organizations and to specific details; the others within the prescribed ages to designated purposes. It becomes my duty to see that they are so devoted and employed. I have no warrant or right to yield them to other (even State) organizations.

With this explanation, you will readily understand that, as far as any troops organized and existing under State authority are properly ‘”‘troops of war” of the State, in the language of the Constitution, they are exempt from the control or interference of the Department, but that all white residents between seventeen and fifty years of age not so embodied as troops of war must be claimed for the military service of the Confederacy in some of the various forms designated by the acts

of Congress on the subject. I may regret that it is not in my power to exercise a more liberal discretion in conformity with your wishes, put your judgment and patriotism are confidently relied on to approve my adherence to the provisions of the law.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Secretary of War.

DeEMOPOLIS, February 27, 1864.

His Execelleney President DAVIS,

Richmond:

This will be handed you by Mr. Minor Major, a citizen of Missouri,

who comes to me properly authenticated. He has been employed in

the work of destroying the property of the enemy on the rivers, and