are intrusted with the entire administration and superintendence of the same. He directs that upon the data given by the requisitions of district ordnance officers made upon you, you will make a consolidated requisition upon the different arsenals within the limits of this command, and establish ordnance depots at such convenient and central points as to be enabled to distribute ammunition and other ordnance stores with ease and dispatch to the commands of the different districts as the ordnance officers of the same may require them. It is suggested that the following would be suitable points for the depots in question: One ordnance depot for the District of Georgia, near the Augusta Arsenal, one for the District of Florida, near the arsenal at Macon, and one for the District of South Carolina, near the Charleston Arsenal. By this means you will be able to keep the requisite supply always on hand in the various commands of the department.

Whenever any of your requisitions fail to be honored at any of the arsenals in the department on account of a scarcity of ammunition, you will then make a requisition, properly approved, upon the Chief of Ordnance at Richmond. The ordnance officers of districts might be placed in charge of the central depots that you may establish for the benefit of their respective commands. Being constantly furnished with the necessary information by your subordinate ordnance officers as to the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores on hand in their several districts, and being vested with the entire management and control of the ordnance department in this command, under the direction of the Chief of Ordnance at Richmond, the general commanding hopes that a recurrence to furnishing ordnance supplies in this department, may be avoided in future. In order that the first clause of paragraph VI, General Orders, Numbers 45, from these headquarters, dated April 15, 1864, may be carried out, the general commanding directs that you cause all the commands that are without ball-screws to be supplied with them at once.

I am, colonel, yours, very respectfully, &c.,

GILES B. COOKE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

P. S.-The ordnance depots referred to in the first paragraph of this letter are not intended to include places of storage for the "reserve supply" for each district herein mentioned. Supplies from the central depots will not be drawn, without your approval, by district ordnance officers.

Yours, &c.,

GILES B. COOKE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

APRIL 15, 1864.

Brigadier General R. S. RIPLEY:

GENERAL: Your letter of the 14th, instant, representing the defenseless condition of your district, has been received, and I am directed by the commanding general to say that he is fully aware of your situation and regrets exceedingly that any further depletion of your command was necessary. He further instructs me to say that the Eighteenth South Carolina Volunteers has been ordered from