3. The detachment of Capt. J. D. Stark's Independent Cavalry Company now at Silver Springs will move immediately to Fort Butler and take post. On its arrival this detachment, with the one at Volusia, will be equally divided; one-half to be stationed at Volusia, under Captain Stark, the other to be stationed at Fort Butler, under First Lieut. M. Haynes. These two detachments will take charge of all boats within their districts, and will guard well all the passes, allowing no persons to pass without proper papers, in accordance with orders heretofore issued. Captain Stark's command will embrace all the troops in his company now serving on the coast. By order of Brigadier-General Finegan : R. B. THOMAS, Colonel and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General. HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, Maj. C. J. HARRIS, Commandant of Conscripts, State of Georgia : MAJOR In answer to your communication asking for the "aggregate present and absent" of the commands from the State of. Georgia in this department, I am directed by the commanding general to report as follows: SAVANNAH, January 24, 1864. General S. COOPER: Department letter 16th instant received. I supposed President desired to know all orders and instructions given to district commanders. My specific answer to your inquiry of December 26 is that I do not propose abandoning my present lines of defense in Third Military District of South Carolina, or anywhere else, without contesting every foot of ground to extent of my means, but have advised planters near Savannah Railroad, who have addressed me on the subject, to remove their negroes liable to fall into hands of enemy. Mr. Roberts' letter has been referred to General Walker for his remarks. G. T. BEAUREGARD. CHARLESTON, S. C., January 24, 1864. General G. T. BEAUREGARD, Savannah, Ga.: Lieutenant Rhame, through General Ripley, reports no buoys have been placed in Dewees Inlet. Captain Walpole, through General Taliaferro, reports that musketry firing for an hour was heard in direction of Morris Island at 9 a. m. on 23d instant. No change in fleet inside bar. Few shots fired at city to-day. Seven shots fired ȧt Sumter yesterday. JNO. M. OTEY, Assistant Adjutant-General. MOUNT PLEASANT, January 25, 1864. Brig. Gen. THOMAS JORDAN : I have information that balloons have gone up for the last three nights from Capers' Island; they have not gone up in the daytime. The object must have been to discover camp-fires. I have given directions to insure their seeing a number of them after to-night, and shall commence rocket practice. Shall also send a reconnoitering party in that direction. R. S. RIPLEY, Forward to Savannah if General Jordan is there. R. S. RIPLEY, HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, General SAMUEL COOPER, Adjutant-General, Richmond, Va.: GENERAL: When I assumed command of this department in September, 1862, I found no officer on the staff of my predecessor charged with the duties of chief commissary, and I made no change, in part because the senior commissary, Major Locke, was absent from my headquarters, usefully employed in Georgia, The system has not, in my belief, worked well and has become so complicated and embarrassing in operation that I must again make an effort to induce a modification for the sake of harmony, to which I am encouraged by so much of the circular of the chief of the Bureau of Subsistence, dated April 15, 1863, and approved by the honorable Secretary of War (see second paragraph, last page), as provides for a chief commissary of each army as part of the plan of supply therein inaugurated. I have no chief commissary to make the requisitions upon the State commissaries provided for and appointed in the circular of the 15th April. Those very State commissaries, Major Locke, in Georgia, and Major Guerin, in South Carolina, act in double capacities that is, continue to communicate directly with the commissaries on duty with my troops, as their immediate department chiefs, in the same manner as before their appointment under that circular, and remain on my rolls as part of my command, never having been detached therefrom by any order of the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office; in other words, they remain precisely as I found them, and yet have at the same time the other duties involved by the appointment as State commissaries, by virtue of the approved circular of the 15th April, a state of affairs which must inevitably lead to conflict of authority, as indeed it has done in one recent and signal instance. It is the recurrence of such things, to the prejudice of the public interests, which I sincerely desire to avoid. I have no wish to change any of the arrangement made by the circular in question, which I doubt not, if properly carried out, will be efficient and develop the full resources of the country. But I desire, in order that that system should go into full effect in my department, that those State commissaries should be confined to the duties prescribed in that circular, and that a chief commissary be assigned to me, of proper rank, to be the organ of communication and requisition with them for my command, and that these double and conflicting functions in the same persons should cease. I have no strong preference among officers of the Subsistence Department known to me, but if consulted as to the person, I would be pleased to have either Maj. J. F. Cummings or Maj. F. Molloy; the former on duty at Atlanta and the latter at Charleston. I inclose herewith a copy of an order which I would issue if approved by the War Department. Were events to force me to concentrate and take the field I should, under the present arrangement, be without a chief commissary, and his duties, as hitherto, would have to be performed in the office of my headquarters, which is the source of constant annoyance. Respectfully, your obedient servant, G. T. BEAUREGARD, [Indorsement.] JANUARY 29, 1864. Respectfully referred to Commissary-General for his views before submitting this letter to the Secretary of War. S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General. [Inclosure.] GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. C., GA., AND FLA., I. } Charleston, is announced as chief commissary of this department, and as the organ of communication and requisition with the several State commissaries appointed under the circular of the Bureau of Subsistence, dated April 15, 1863. II. To guard against unnecessary delays, brigade commissaries in Georgia and Florida, under the orders of district commanders, may make requisitions directly on the chief State commissaries in their respective districts, without previous reference to the chief commissary of this department, but copies of all such requisitions will be forwarded to him without delay. III. All army depot commissaries will forward semi-monthly to the chief commissary of this department a statement of all subsistence supplies on hand and such other papers as may be required by that officer for his information and aid in the discharge of his duties. HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, General S. COOPER, Savannah, Ga., January 26, 1864. Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond, Va.: GENERAL: Your letter of the 17th instant has been received, and in reply I beg leave to say that the orders in the case of BrigadierGeneral Evans had already been published, and the release of that officer from arrest directed at the date of your communication, as will be seen by General Orders, No. 126, series 1863, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, herewith, another copy of which, with the proceedings, having been forwarded on the 15th instant. I cannot but regret that in connection with General Evans I am debarred a privilege which has been repeatedly allowed to be exercised in the course of this war by other commanders of the armies of the Confederate States, my juniors as well as seniors. The board of examiners provided for in the act approved October 13, 1862, I did not order, for various reasons, including my inability to appoint at this time 3 officers of suitable rank without serious inconvenience to the service; the delay that hitherto has invariably attended final action on the decisions of all such boards held in the department, and my indisposition to subject an officer who had twice served in battle under my orders in the first year of the war with merit, indeed, distinction, to the humiliation involved by such an examination. Knowing, however, that he had become a disturbing element in his brigade, that some of the superior officers in it occupied relations toward him of such fierce personal hostility as to create inextinguishable discord, that the confidence in him of a large number of the officers and men of the brigade had become materially impaired, and that the state of discipline and instruction into which the brigade under his command had fallen was bad, I was forced to be unwilling to intrust the command again to his hands, and accordingly the course I adopted. 35 R R-VOL XXXV, PT I Satisfied that General Evans will be unable to restore harmony in his brigade, that his restoration to the command of it will result in the undoing of all the good to discipline that has been effected in his absence, and that under his lead I could not reasonably rely on his troops in battle; much as I regret it, I have now no alternative in the interest of my command but to ask that a board of examiners, under the act of October 13, 1862, shall be appointed in your office of officers senior to General Evans. Major-General Gilmer cannot at this time be detached from his command in Georgia. Brigadier-General Ripley has such relations with General Evans as to make his detail on the board improper, and Brigadier-General Wise cannot well be separated long enough from his command. All the other general officers in this department are junior to him. Respectfully, your obedient servant, Brig. Gen. THOMAS JORDAN, G. T. BEAUREGARD, CHARLESTON, January 26, 1864 Chief of Staff: GENERAL: The Southern Torpedo Company expect to have two more steamers afloat to-morrow or next day, and would respectfully place the same under the orders of the general commanding. I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, THEODORE STONEY. Secretary. HDQRS. FOURTH MILITARY DIST. OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Brig. Gen. THOMAS JORDAN, Georgetown, January 26, 1864. Chief of Staff, &c., Charleston, S. C.: GENERAL: The Confederate navy-yard at Mars Bluff, Peedee River, is assuming daily greater and greater importance. Already has there been nearly completed there a vessel of war of some magnitude, which it is computed will be ready for sea in about two months. It is contemplated, as I learn, to build others, and it seems probable that important additions to our Navy will continue to be supplied from this yard as long as the war may last. The President alludes to it in his annual message, and its growing importance will naturally attract the attention of the enemy. It is my duty, therefore, to invite attention to the fact that the only defense for this navy-yard consists in the battery (White) which guards the entrance to Winyah (upper) Bay, and such a defense as might be extemporized by riflemen and field batteries upon the banks of the river. I need not refer to the armament of Battery White; the commanding general of course is aware of its weakness. The position itself is a strong one, and with a proper artillery and a sufficient infantry support might be rendered almost, if not absolutely, impregnable. In view of the fact that it covers a naval establishment of growing importance, and the additional fact that this may become a |