officer confessed last night to Captain Tanner that nearly the whole company had agreed to go off that night. All the parties concerned were pledged to secrecy by an oath.

The spirit of the Fifty-seventh Georgia Regiment is bad. The troops say they have never been properly exchanged, and the impression prevails (probably with good reason) that they will not fight if brought before the enemy. They are demoralized by the influence of home, to which they are too near, their property exchanged and ought them that they have not been properly exchanged and ought to be at home. General Colston says their presence there may have a bad effect upon the other troops, and their spirit and tone may be improved by removal to more distant points. It will be necessary, of course, to send other troops in the place of those removed. The companies at Rose Dew are: Company F, Captain J. W. Anderson; Company I, Captain Elkins, Fifty-fourth Georgia Regiment, and Jackson Guards, Captain Elkins, Fifty-fourth Georgia Regiment, and Jackson Guards, Captain Tanner, who claims to belong to the Fourth Florida Battalion, but is considered there as commanding an independent company. There are two other companies of the Fifty-fourth Georgia Regiment near Savannah, commanded by Captains Russell and Brantley. The latter is with the siege train.

January 15.-Colonel Elliott, at Fort Sumter, reports that the weather will not permit an observation of the fleet within and outside the bar this morning, and that two 42-pounder guns were shipped last night. Some of our own batteries on the Stono silent. Ninety-four vessels of various classes are reported in Port Royal Harbor. At 10 a. m., two ships and two barks got under way and went to sea, the distance too for and too foggy to see troops aboard. One gun-boat went up Broad River to the upper end of Donough Island and returned. Everything very quiet in that harbor. Captain Walpole reports 31 vessels in Stono harbor. A transport (without troops) went up Folly River and returned this morning. Two river steamers ran up and down Folly River nearly all day, but it could not be discovered what they were at. There is one gun-boat in North Edisto. Several telegraph poles were cut between Branchville and Aiken during the night. Enemy continued to fire on the city form Cumming's Point. Whole number [shells] fired, 189, of which 63 feel short, all of the first shots that came into the city falling in this southeastern corner, east of Meeting and south of Broad streets. At 3 o'clock the direction of fire was changed, and for the first time shells fell in the upper portion of the city in the neighborhood of the Second Presbyterian Church, its tower evidently being the point aimed at. One shell passed immediately over the church and fell in the rear of a lot in John street near Meeting. At 6 a. m., fire was caused by the explosion of a shell from battery on Cumming's Point, in a building on Meeting street near Water street. The fire department succeeded in confining it to the one building.

January 16.-Considerable movements were observed in the Yankee fleet in the Stono this morning, gun-boats, transports, and small steamers coming in and going out again during the day. About 40 men were carrying plank from Horse Island to be batteries at Green Creek. Several vessels passed going south. The number of vessels in Stono Bay has increased. In Port Royal Harbor are anchored 2 steam frigates, 2 steam sloops of war, 1 steam cutter, 5 wooden gun-boats, 73 transports, 7 ocean steamers, and