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Executive Department:
Montgomery, Alabama, April 30^th 1862.
Brigadier Gen^l John H. Forney.
Head-quarters, Mobile, Alabama,
Sir:
My special aid Hon. A. J. Walker, is directed to report to you at
your Head-Quarters at Mobile - to co-operate with you, in any measures,
for the defense of the State. He is charged with important
communications for your consideration, and will confer, freely, with you, and
advise you of my earnest desire to obtain your assistance in completing
the battery at Fort-Stoddard, and at Blakely, and in procuring Guns
for batteries on the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers. I regard, in the
present aspect of affairs, the construction of these defenses of vital
importance to the State.
Respectfully, Yours,
(Signed) Jn^o Gill Shorter. c

Executive Department:
Montgomery, Alabama, April 30 1862.
Gentlemen,
Your communication of the 28^th inst. was
duly received, advising me that the company, which
you have the honor to command, have paid me
the exalted compliment of unanimously naming
their organization the "Shorter Dragoons". I beg
you to express to the Company, the sense of
gratitude I feel for this unexpected and undeserved
honor; & to impress them with the unalterable purpose with which,
in the future, as I have done in the past, I shall labor in the
sacred cause of the Southern deliverance from Northern Domination. In
this good work, I shall proudly claim the co-operation of the
gallant men who compose the "Shorter-Dragoons"; and I know
that in "the house which shall try men's souls," they will be found
true to the cause of their beloved Alabama.

With my earnest wishes for the health - prosperity - success
of the "Shorter-Dragoons," and with the assurances of very high
personal consideration, I am, Gentlemen,
Your friend, and fellow-Citizen,
Respectfully, Yours,
(Signed) Jn^o Gill Shorter.
To Mess^r James Cunningham, Captain.
James H. C^cCreary, 1st Lieut.
John Lyon, 2^d Lieut.
H. E. Richardson, 3^d Lieut.
of "Shorter-Dragoons." c

Executive Department;
Montgomery, Alabama, May 1st 1862
To Jefferson Davis, Pres^t of the Confederate States.
Sir:
This will be handed you by D^r L. C. Garland, Pres^t of
the University of Alabama, and superintendent of the Alabama Corps
of Cadets. - I presume you are aware of the fact, that for two
years, the University has been a Military institution, and that
it is the Nursery of Military talent for the State. Its present
Corps (125 strong) has discharged - and is still in the discharge
of a most important public service - drilling the dozen
Encampments of Volunteers in various parts of the State. The number
engaged in this Service, and the manner in which the service has
been discharged, prove, that the Military instruction of the
Corps has been thorough. The importance of maintaining
the integrity of the Corps, has the Super-intendent & myself - to