[Inclosure.]

STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,

Engineer Bureau, Charleston, S. C., March 8, 1861.

Major General S. R. GIST, Adjutant and Inspector General:

GENERAL: Owing to very pressing engagements, as also owing to daily reports not having been sent in regularly by the engineers in charge of the several works under construction in the harbor of Charleston, my daily reports have been interrupted for the past three or four days.

I have now to report that the reconstruction of the mortar battery on the beach at Fort Johnson is very nearly completed. It is designed to move two mortars from this battery and place them where I commenced a battery, for the removal of the four mortars from the beach battery. The battery and magazine for these mortars will be completed in a few days. On Morris Island all the guns and mortars which have been sent over have been mounted and placed.

The following postscript, attached to an order of the 7th instant, from the commanding general, will show, to some extent, future operations on Morris Island, viz:

At Cummings Point on Morris Island he wishes all work stopped at present, except at the iron battery (finishing the work he ordered there) and at the condemned mortar battery (which he ordered to be changed into a bomb-proof). The balance of the working force will immediately (under charge of Colonel Lamar, who has command of the working parties) be put to work constructing those channel batteries he ordered Major Whiting to mark out, so as to have them completed as soon as practicable.

Twenty-eight laborers (all that could be procured) worked yesterday on a battery for four 24-pounders, near the steamboat landing, at the point of Sullivan's Island, ordered by the commanding general, for enfilading the guns en barbette on Fort Sumter.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WALTER GWYNN,

Major of Engineers.

HEADQUARTERS CONFEDERATE STATES ARMY,
Charleston, S. C., March 8, 1861.

Honorable L. P. WALKER, Secretary of War, Montgomery, Ala.:

SIR: The Department letter of the 2nd instant has been received, but could not be answered sooner. Governor Pickens, who obligingly affords me all the assistance in his power, as well as all his officers, suggests that the State of South Carolina should continue to defray all the present current expenses incurred within its limits, so as not to complicate the present moneyed difficulties of the Confederate States Government. This would probably be a very proper arrangement.

With regard to the supposed temporary dissatisfaction of the State troops, alluded to by you, upon consultation with the governor, he advises that the brigade of State Regulars should remain as at present organized, until required to enter the Federal service, but in the mean time to be under my orders. Its commanding general and staff have readily assented to this arrangement, and by the order of the governor (already communicated to the War Department), it must have been seen that all the troops (State, Regulars, and Volunteers) in or about Charleston have already been put under my orders, and I can perceive among them no spirit of opposition or dissatisfaction. On the contrary,