HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF PENSACOLA,
Pensacola, Fla., March 12, 1862.

Colonel THOMAS M. JONES:

SIR: I have just received the following telegram from the Adjutant and Inspector General C. S. Army:

RICHMOND, March 12, 1862.

Your dispatch of yesterday just received. You are fully authorized to use your own discretion, making all necessary arrangements for the safety of material referred to by you.

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

Let me know by Lieutenant Noble, who will hand you this, the number of armed men, as shown by your morning report of this morning. Do not include any of the Fourth Alabama Battalion. The few arms they have belong to the Florida regiment, and the lieutenant-colonel is ordered to turn them over. You will keep the battalion, as so many over and above the number of armed men left you. The governor of Alabama has just telegraphed me that five companies will leave Montgomery for Pensacola to-morrow, and he will send 1,000 here.

Make your arrangements as we agreed on last evening. Encourage you men; tell them they are engaged in most important service. If hey can hold Pensacola even long enough to save the public property and move it to a place of security they will have rendered most valuable service, which will not fail to be properly noticed and appreciated. If they can hold it permanently they will immortalize themselves.

Put some men with axes to cutting up all the masts and spars of the Fulton and all such. They are in one of the store-houses of the navy-yard, and some of them are piled against the wall near the officers' quarters. In arranging for the destruction of machinery, do not forget to overlook that used for drawing vessels into the dock.

General Bragg telegraphed me last night again to relieve Villepigue and send him to him. I must therefore go to Mobile. Will leave to-morrow if the road is practicable. I leave most important and responsible duties to you, and have full faith in your ability and will to perform them if they can be performed.

Do all you can to quiet and reassure your officers and men. Represent to them-what is really the case, I believe-that from the apparent condition of things on Santa Rosa the enemy is not prepared to make a serious attack; that from reports which they may have heard of the movements here they may attempt to feel us to ascertain our true condition, and if met boldly and repelled all will be quiet, at least until they are strongly re-enforced.

In haste, respectfully, &c.,

SAM. JONES,

Brigadier-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, Va., March 12, 1862.

General MANSFIELD LOVELL,

New Orleans, La.:

SIR: I have your letter of the 27th ultimo, together with its inclosures. I have also received several communications in relation to the command of the river steamer defenses, and both the President and myself have felt much embarrassed by them. The expedition was planned and gotten up by Captains Montgomery and Townsend, recommended by the whole Mississippi delegation and General Polk, and the objections