damage done by the enemy's fire to the slopes and magazines repaired. At Battery Chatfield the inclosure of palisading has been completed and the gates put up; revetment around magazine to the 300-pounder and mortar batteries has been repaired; sand ridge in front of gun Numbers 2 has been graded and a flag-staff has been put up. The embrasure of gun Numbers 2 has been enlarges\d so as to allow it to fire on Moultrie; a platform for mortar shells has been laid; the platform to 100-pounder has been raised and leveled; the embrasure of the 300-pounder has been enlarged so as to enable it to fire on Sumter and timbers have been put under them.

At Fort Shaw the slopes have been graded and dressed with manure; two gates have been put up and the sand ridge north of the fort has been graded.

The work on Fort Putnam and Battery Chatfield is now completed. A number of stockades are still to be set at Fort Shaw and the grading of the sand ridge north of it completed. The stockades are cut at Kiawah Island and await transportation.

On Morris Island, including the little work on Black Island, there are ten forts and batteries, namely:

No. 1. Fort Strong, mounting twenty-one guns and mortars, ranging for 12-pounder field pieces to the 200-pounder Parrott, with a garrison of 4 officers and 132 men.

No. 2. Fort Putnam, mounting ten guns, ranging form a 12-pounder howitzer to a 200-pounder Parrott, with a garrison of 5 officers and 100 men.

No. 3. Battery Chatfield and 10-inch columbiad battery, the former mounting two 100-pounder and one 300-pounder Parrotts and the latter four 10-inch sea-coast mortars and two 10-inch columbiads.

No. 4. Battery Seymour, Battery Barton, and 13-inch mortar battery, the former mounting four 10-inch sea-coast mortars, the second the same as the first, and the third two 13-inch mortars. The garrison is composed of 2 officers and 39 men.

No. 5. Fort Shaw, mounting two 10-inch siege mortars and two 8-inch sea-coast howitzers, with a garrison of 3 officers and 159 men.

No. 6. Battery Purviance, mounting two 42-pounders smooth-bore and two 30-pounder Parrotts, with a garrison of 1 officer and 49 men.

No. 7. On Black Island there are mounted on the little work one 12-pounder Wiard gun and one 12-pounder howitzer, with 1 officer and a detachment of 10 men to take charge of the guns.

During the month of March the only change which occurred in the troops at this post was the removal of Company B, Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, to Hilton Head. Their place has been supplied by a detail of men accustomed to the use of heavy guns from the Eleventh Maine Volunteers. I am now about changing the location of camps in pursuance of orders received from your headquarters.

A close watch is kept on the movements of the enemy on the neighboring islands and in Charleston, and I receive a report at night of what has taken place during the day. Five hundred men, with the proper number of commissioned and non-commissioned officers, are sent to the front every evening at sundown and remain on duty for the night under the direction of a general officer of the day and a field officer of the trenches. They are posted at Strong, the batteries above (both sides of the island being picketed between Strong and Putnam), and at the left batteries. I have also placed