well as that of subordinate commanders, brigade, and other army commissaries, had necessarily been allowed to go out in pursuit of supplies, particularly meat. Brigadier-General Colquitt, commanding a brigade of Georgia troops stationed on James Island, was induced to believe that by sending out his commissary into Georgia he could procure some supplies in the emergency.

Accordingly, about the 19th December, 1863,that officer, Major J. B. Morgan, left, on his way through this city receiving from Major H. C. Guerin, chief commissary for the State of South Carolina, a letter to the post commissary, Macon, Ga., requesting the transfer of certain molasses (25 barrels) for the use of Colquitt's brigade. Major Morgan, it appears, went to Columbus,and on the 23rd December urged Major Allen to transfer "25 barrels of molasses to feed a brigade at Charleston," and also some beef, upon which that officer telegraphed to Major Locke the "urged demands," and inquired, "Shall I transfer to him the pickled beef at Wooten's and Geneva? He is sent by Major Guerin." To which it seems Major Locke answered at once, "No, positively; we cannot send supplies to Charleston, with General Bragg's army at our doors."

On or about the 2nd of January, Major Morgan, came to my headquarters and represented that there was an abundance of sirup and some beef at Columbus, Ga., which Major Allen, subsistence officer there, was willing to turn over to him on my order, but could not do it without.

Mean time the scarcity of provisions at the disposition of Major Guerin had even increased, his difficulties of supply were, he confessed, growing daily more critical, and he had reported but some 13,000 pounds of salt meat in depot for issue on the 1st of January, with but a few thousand troops in hands of the commissaries on James and Sullivan's Islands, an equally deficient supply of fresh beef, and only some 30 barrels and 45,904 pounds of salt beef and some 8,400 pounds of pork bacon in the whole State. While Major Locke had in store for issue to his smaller force at Savannah 77,600 pounds of fresh beef and 115,000 pounds of bacon, with 67,000 pounds of salt beef and 48,000 pounds bacon as a reserve supply at his Columbus depot, nevertheless could I have anticipated any decided objection on the part of Major Locke, much less his actual course, with my experience of the termination of all collisions with officers of the Bureau of Subsistence since I have had the Bureau of Subsistence since I have had the honor to command armies of the Confederate States, assuredly I would never have issued the order, would never have placed myself in a position to have my authority set defiantly aside and contemned. Not having reason, however, to believe that the order would be disagreeable, and in view of the disproportionate supplies at the disposition of Majors Locke and Guerin, paragraph VII, Special Orders, No. 2, current series, was issued, with express injunction that a copy should be sent, as was done, to Major Locke, the immediate superior of Major Allen, this being in accordance with an army custom when necessities of the service call for the transmission of an order directly to the officer who is to execute it. That I was fully empowered to issue such a command to Major Allen or his superior, Major Locke, I have no doubt, nor does it appear to be questioned by the Commissary-General, who simply asks the interposition of the War Department to revoke it. As you are doubtless aware, Major Locke, on learning through the copy of the order sent him from this office that