William L. Marcy to Governor Albert G. Brown, May 11, 1847

(From Vicksburg Sentinel, August 18, 1847.)

War Department,

May 11th, 1847.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 20th ultimo, representing the anxiety felt by a number of the volunteers in the first Regiment from your State to retain the arms they have borne in Mexico, and requesting that an order might be issued to that effect. In answer, I regret to say that the Department has no power to dispose of the public property confided to its charge, in the way here proposed. But with a view to gratify the natural desire of the volunteers as far as may be consistently done, the Department takes pleasure in adopting the suggestion of your Excellency, and has accordingly directed that the arms in the hands of the volunteers belonging to the first Mississippi Regiment be issued to the State as a part of her quota under the act of 1808, agreeably to the report of the Ordnance Department herewith enclosed.

It would give me sincere pleasure to comply with your request in relation to presenting to the gallant Mississippi Volunteers a portion of the trophies won at Monterey, but I regret that I have not the right to dispose of them, even to those by whose valor they were acquired. The right to dispose of them is in Congress, and I cannot doubt they will readily and cheerfully gratify the wishes of your brave fellow citizens as soon as it shall be made known to them.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

W. L. MARCY,

Secretary of War.

His Excellency,
    A. G. BROWN,
        Governor of Mississippi,
            Jackson, Mississippi.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, pp. 90-1