your orders to proceed to Charlestown with steamer Emma for supplies I made the necessary arrangements to do so, and started in a yawl-boat for the steamer Ediston, in order to be transferred to the Emma, then engaged in landing troops at Bay Point. The steamers were compelled by the fire of the enemy to take refuge in Skull Creek, and the steamer Emma I afterwards learned continued on the Savannah. Our boat, in consequence, was compelled to return to the island, and I found it impossible, for that day at least, to carry out your instructions. Since that time you are aware of all that has transpired in my department. In reference to the stores left at Beaufort I would beg leave to call your attention to the report of my chief clerk, Mr. Baya made every exertion in his power to have the stores removed to a place of safety, and his failure to do so was from causes entirely beyond his control.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,

C. D. OWENS,

Captain, P. A., and A. C. S.

Brigadier General THOMAS F. DRAYTON.

Numbers 10. Report of Mr. H. T. Baya, Clerk in Confederate Subsistence Department.

HARDEEVILLE, S. C., November 23, 1861.

SIR: In accordance with you instructions I left Beaufort on Wednesday morning, in the steamer General Clinch, with provisions, to be landed at Hilton Head and Bay Point. On our way down, having met the steamer John A. Moore, with a portion of the Fifteenth Regiment on board, bound for Hilton Head, and unable to continue the passage owing to the severity of the wind, we took the troops off of her on board the Head Island, and landed them. The provisions for that post were also safely landed there. Captain S. Simons, the commissary of the post, to whom the provisions were marked, not being at the landing, I sent the Ninth [Eleventh] Regiment South Carolina Volunteers. At the landing in question I met Captain C. Tracy, of General Drayton's staff, to whose attention I called the landing of the provisions. At about 9 p .m. we started on our mission to Bay Pont, and laid quietly at anchor about daylight the following morning (November 7), when we steamed up the quite near the fort (the usual place of landing,) and began landing provisions for the point in two lighters. Captain A. E. Rabb, the commissary of the post, being absent, I sent a messenger to him asking his presence. He soon came down to the point of landing, when I informed him of the object of my mission, and handed him your letter containing invoices. He desired me to hurry with the landing, and he would sign receipts for the goods as soon as he could check off the invoices.

In the midst of the landing the fleet of the enemy's vessels, which were then at anchor near the bar, appeared to be in motion, and soon after came in and began the fight. On their approach we stopped the landing of provisions, hoisted anchor, and stood towards Beaufort, where we arrived at about 1 p. m. I there found the people under intense excitement, the mass of whom were making preparations to go to some place of safety on the main-land, they fully believing that the enemy

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*See Numbers 10, following.

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