panied by a copy of the following order by Brigadier-General Blanchard:*

* * * * * * * *

The President desires an investigation to be made into the circumstances of this unfortunate affair of the management on the part of the Confederate officers immediately in charge, and that you give such orders consequent upon the investigation as the case may require, or report the facts, with your recommendation of the course to be pursued.+

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF MISSISSIPPI AND EAST LOUISIANA,
Vicksburg, January 28, 1863.

Major General RICHARD TAYLOR, Commanding, &c.:

SIR: The exigencies of the service on the Mississippi River make it of the utmost importance that the steamboats Falls City and Louisville should be fitted up for active operations. i hope therefore you will turn over these boats to Captain J. M. White and Captain H. H. Beard, practical and energetic men, and aid and facilitate them in fitting them up. They are instructed and expected to do this work in the shortest possible time. They are of the opinion that all the material they need can be had on Red River. I would suggest that the powder and lead of which I wrote you yesterday will be forwarded on these boats. It will further facilitate movements if you can cause our subsistence (for over 200 men for fifteen days) to be furnished these boats. Our supply of meat in this department is insufficient, and if it can be done you will serve us be sending a boat load of beeves and hogs to Port Hudson as soon as possible.

Very respectfully, &c.,

J. C. PEMBERTON,

Lieutenant-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF THE GULF,
Mobile, January 29, 1863.

His Excellency J. G. SHORTER,

Governor of Alabama, Montgomery:

GOVERNOR: On the 18th instant I wrote to Captain Farrand proposing take charge of the obstructions at Owen Bluff, but asking that the materials already collected for a raft might be turned over to the Confederate States and applied in the construction of sawyers, connected together in groups of eight or ten, forming when anchored three continuous and closely adjacent lines across the river. I also asked that the laborers furnished by the State might be continue on the work and that the State should continue to pay them.

The only objects of this proposition were to gain time in completing the obstructions and to make trial of the system of sawyers; a plan which has been adopted elsewhere and is recommended by the Confederate States Engineer Bureau; it also meets the approval of General

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* See Inclosure No. 1 to Sparrow to Seddon, January 19, 1863.

+ See Sparrow to Seddon, January 19, and Taylor to Seddon, February 19, 1863.

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