distance. A few heavy round shot, to bring down the masses loosened by the rifled projectiles, are of good service. I would not hesitate to attempt a practicable breach in brick scarp at 2,000 yards' distance with ten guns of my own selection.

3. No better piece for breaching can be desired than the 42-pounder James. The grooves, however, must be kept clean. Parrot guns throwing as much metal as the James would be equally good, supposing them to fire as accurately as the 30-pounder Parrott.

I append to this report a map,* giving the positions of our several batteries and the orders issued, assigning the detachments to the batteries, and regulating the direction and rapidity of the firing. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Q. A. GILLMORE,

Commanding U. S. Forces, Tybee and Cockspur Islands, Ga.

Lieutenant A. B. ELY,

A. A. A. G., N. D., Dept. of the South, Hilton Head, S. C.

HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES,
Tybee and Cockspur Islands, April 23, 1862.

GENERAL: You showed me General Viele's report of the operations of his command on the Savannah River. As I was present with his forces as General Sherman's chief engineer until after the Venus Point battery was established, I have, in compliance with General Totten's request and with General Sherman's knowledge, furnished a report of those operations, and shall accompany my report of the siege of Pulaski with an accurate map of the Savannah River.* I am very desirous that there shall be no conflict or discrepancy in the records. This is my exucese for calling your attention to some portions of General Viele's report, which must have left his hands without having been closely inspected by him. The points to which I refer are-

1st. One impression conveyed in the report is that the obstructions in Wall's Cut were removed by General Viele's command, when in fact Major Beard, Forty-eighth New York, then the provost-marshal at Hilton Head, was secretly sent out by General Sherman to do this work, with a company of engineers, more than three weeks before the investing force left Port Royal or General Viele was assigned to their command. The obstructions were removed on January 13, two weeks before General Viele's troops left Port Royal.

2nd. The length of the road across Jones Island, over which the Venus Point guns were carried, is represented on the general's map as considerably longer than the distance from Fort Pulaski to the 10-inch mortar on Long Island, which opened on the fort the last day of the siege, while in fact it is not much over one-half as long. In other words, the Jones Island causeway is about three-quarters of a mile long, while the distance from Fort Pulaski to the mortar referred to is over one mile and a quarter, according to Coast Survey charts. The mortar was not at the extreme lower end of the island. The effect is to unduly exaggerate the labor of building the road and the danger of serving the mortar. According to statements of Colonel Olmstead and his officers after the surrender not a single shell from Long Island reached the fort; a circumstances which might have been foreseen by a reference to the table of range for 10-inch siege mortars.

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*To appear in Atlas.

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