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C. S. A. Hernando, Miss. April 20th, 1861
Gov Pettus.
My Dear Sir: I was commissioned to take 400 men to Kansas in 1856, to suppress civil war. This was when Pierce was going to be Jackson, but was prevented, and Jeff Davis was Secty. of War. I left Nashville Tenn. my home and settled here in 1858 Since Davis has proved himself the greatest man the South or North ever produced; and Tennessee failed to go out with us, the Captain of my former Companies wrote me to come and take them to join the Southern Army.
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Upon repeated applications from there, I wrote to Presd Davis upon the subject, (being sure that we could not be taken.) and was informed that they could not recieve troops from a foreign power. But the Secty of War put me upon a plan to get them in. This caused me to write you. I presume my application was mistaken. My men were presented to Mississippi merely to be transfered, at once, to the Southern Army; then this State could fill up her quota again, for we would belong to the Southern Army and not to Mississippi. This I presumed would be un-derstood by you. I merely asked the favor of a pass through your great State.
I should have referred you to Maj Simeon Oliver, Col. Chalmers, Prof Dockers, and G. W. White Esqr., had it not been that the case referred itself. Thus much by the way of explanation Now the tide has turned in Tenn and no doubt we will soon want all our men for the frontier This being the case, if my four Companies have not already been recieved at Jackson on your Books, I desire to withdraw the same We prefer going simply as "Tennessee Volunteers."
I am dear sir, Very respectfully, Yr obt srt, J H. Nelson
