HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S. C., September 5, 1864.

Major General SAMUEL JONES,

Commanding Confederate Forces Dept. of S. C., Ga., and Fla.:

GENERAL: I am informed by an officer recently arrived from Charleston that James Pike, of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry, and Charles R. Gray, of Fifth Iowa Cavalry, are held by you in close confinement at the jail tower in Charleston, and kept upon a prison diet of mush and water. Also that these men have been informed that they are held and a re to be tried as spies. If further learn that they were captured on our about June 5 last, near the Hiwassee River, in Southeastern Tennessee or the northwestern part of South Carolina, and that, when taken, they were wearing our uniform and had arms in their hands. If their claim in this respect is true, they are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war. I respectfully ask you to have their case investigated and extend to them the treatment usually accorded to prisoners of war among civilized nations.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

J. G. FOSTER,

Major-General, Commanding.

OFFICE CHIEF OF ARTILLERY, DEPT. OF THE SOUTH,

Hilton Head, S. C., September 5, 1864.

Major General J. G. FOSTER,

Commanding Department of the South:

GENERAL: I have the honor to make the following report of a tour of instruction through the District of Florida:

The garrison of Fort Clinch consists of two companies of the One hundred and seventh Ohio Volunteers and one company of the Third U. S. Colored Troops, recently sent to that post to perform the artillery duty. This company has had some experience at Jacksonville in artillery, and will, in my opinion, make efficient artillerists, they having competent instructors.

The garrisons of the different works at Jacksonville are all in excellent condition, being well drilled in the manual of the piece and well instructed in the nomenclature of pieces, carriages, implements, equipments, ammunition, and ranges of the different objects in the vicinity of their respective batteries. The garrison of Fort Hatch, Company H, Third U. S. Colored Troops, Captain S Conant, is particularly conversant with the above points. I am of the opinion the these works are as efficiently garrisoned as any in the department, the ranges of different points having been of then verified by actual practice.

The garrison of Fort Marion, at Saint Augustine, I found in quite an indifferent condition. The recent and absence of a company that had been instructed as artillery left the fort without an efficient garrison. I would respectfully suggest that a company of the Seventeenth Connecticut Volunteers be designated to perform the artillery duty in this work, and not to be removed unless the regiment leaves the post. The frequent change of garrisons and the substitution of companies unacquainted with their duties at times when the best artillerists are needed for defense perils the safety of the town and fort and renders impossible to maintain a well-instructed and