I am happy to inform you that the President has ordered the nomination of J. Patton Anderson to be brigadier-general, as well as that of Colonel Chalmers. There was no reason for any sensitiveness on the part of Colonel Anderson, as the nomination of Colonel S. A. M. Wood was not made with any reference to the comparative merits of these gentlemen, but solely from the portentous circumstances that the services of a brigadier were urgently needed at the point where Colonel Wood was observing and not so with you. The President and myself have both a very high opinion of the merits and soldierly qualities of Colonel Anderson.

We got in a small cargo the other day on the Southern coast with 6,000 rifles and 50,000 pounds of powder, together with other valuable munitions. I mention this, as the supply of powder will enable us to furnish Generals Lee and Huger without having on any that may be received in New Orleans or made in Nashville. I hope ere this you have and your supply replenished from New Orleans.

Please telegraph me what troops and what number you will dispatch to Knoxville as soon as you receive this letter.

Your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

RICHMOND, VA., February 8, 1862.

Major General MANSFIELD LOVELL,

New Orleans, La.:

I have written you to-day, by the President's direction, to send immediately 5,000 of your best-equipped men to Columbus, to re-enforce General Beauregard.

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

MOBILE, February 10, 1862.

Honorable J. P. BENJAMIN:

SIR: I send a regiment to-day to Decatur, Ala., to save our railroad bridge.

If Farragut and Butler are destined for this point my force is too weak to spare more.

BRAXTON BRAGG.

[Confidential.]

HDQRS. DEPARTMENT ALABAMA AND WEST FLORIDA,
Mobile, February 12, 1862.

General SAMUEL JONES,

Commanding Army of Pensacola:

Our necessities are so great that we have been compelled to make large drafts on your command and may have to reduce you still more. The President has called on me for four regiments for Tennessee, and, though I am not yet decided to send them, you must be prepared to spare one more, the Ninth Mississippi, in case I do.

To prepare you for this, and also to secure you from danger by too great a dispersion of your command, I deem it prudent to withdraw from Deer Point all the force there except, say, two companies, to act as a mere picket, in conjunction with your gunboats. A small detachment