the impressment law as a consequence of General Orders, Numbers 144, Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, series 1863, for he is constrained to believe the fault is in the defective manner in which the system of impressments is applied. Middlemen can find supplies--can draw them out with the currency of the country--and it is believed that your department also can do the same by sending the necessary number of energetic agents into the proper quarter, especially since you can impress in hands of first owners, in which event you are obliged to have prices determined by the method prescribed in the law--that is, a local arbitration as to price. An attempt to override this provision of the law, it is believed, has been the fruitful source of nearly all of the trouble now experienced in the operations of your department.

It is not seem that the present difficulty arises from the currency, inasmuch as private speculations are based on it as well as on the operations of the Government. Of course it enhances the price of all articles.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS JORDAN,

Chief of Staff.

JANUARY 8, 1864.

Major General J. F. GILMER,

Second in command, Savannah:

GENERAL: The commanding general wishes to know if some way cannot be devised for destroying the enemy's dock-yards, machine shops, &c., at Scull Creek, either by an expedition specially organized for the purpose or by long-range rifled 32-pounders used as mortars, firing "liquid-shells" at from 3 1/2 to 4 miles' range.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. JORDAN.

CHARLESTON, January 9, 1864.

General S. COOPER:

Weather very bad several days past; cold and clear to-day. Enemy's batteries all silent. Number of vessels of all kinds in Port Royal this morning reported at 120, of which 110 are transports.

G. T. BEAUREGARD.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA,
Charleston, January 9, 1864.

Colonel J. GORGAS,

Chief of Ordnance, Richmond, Va.:

COLONEL: I have delayed answering your letter of the 27th November, 1863, referring to the rifling and banding of 8-inch and 10-inch columbiads, until I could carefully reconsider my preconceived views and subject them to the test of actual experiment.

Up to this time, however, the enemy have not given me an opportunity of trying the 10-inch rifled and banded columbiads as fully as

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