quantities at the rear end. The ammunition has not as yet become at all affected, and is very good. One chamber is vacant, but the gun platform is yet in it.

Fort Johnson is in good order, and very neatly policed about the guns and magazines.

Battery Simkins is in fair condition. One of the magazines is subject to overflow, and therefore useless. The other wants more earth to make it safe, and the necessity for this addition is the more apparent that it is in the immediate front of and not distant from the powerful artillery of the Abolition batteries on Morris Island. The gallery to the magazine is much impeded by boxes of projectiles. The 6.40 Brooke gun on the beach, belonging to Simkins, has been repaired, and is in good order. Oil is required for the magazine, and lacquer for the guns and projectiles, particularly for the canister, to prevent corrosion from exposure.

Headquarters Brooke gun is in good order.

Cheves is not in good order. The parapets are incomplete and the eccentric of one of the guns needs repairing. Ammunition and implements generally good, but Captain Hunter complains much of the inaccuracy of fire of his 8-inch columbiad. It works steadily upon the pintle, and has no lodgment nor other defect apparent. The great deviation from the true line of fire, as stated, must be in an imperfect casting of the shells. A few of the cartridges are damaged and the fuses reported bad.

New mortar battery is as yet incomplete, and has a force at work upon it. One of the 10-inch mortars has been dismounted and its carriage sent to Charleston to repair.

Battery Haskell: This battery is in fair condition only. the 42-pounder carronades work hard upon the chassis, which, I think, is the result of sand. The magazines, though dry, are not kept with much neatness. The sponge-heads require repairing. The ammunition is in good order, though the bags are, in some instances, in need of renewing. What is termed the rifled mortar is particularly deficient.

Battery Tatom: Guns generally in good order; magazine not neatly kept, but the ammunition good. There is a quantity of 6-pounder and 12-pounder ammunition at this battery, for which there is no use, and should be turned over to the district ordnance officer.

Battery Ryan: The magazines do not bear any evidence of neatness, and one is reported as damp after continued rains. the sponges are in some instances defective. The 24-pounder Austrian howitzer is particularly deficient in ammunition. The ammunition is, with few exceptions, among the 12-pounder howitzers, good. The damaged one should be turned over. Some of the implements require renewing, and the wheels of one of the 12-pounder howitzer carriages require repairing. I think the efficiency of Captain Bowden's command would be much enhanced if he were to make a methodic and proper distribution of the means now in his possession. The report will show where the irregularities occur.

Redoubt Numbers 1: The excentric of the 8-inch is out of order, as well as the platform for the 32-pounder magazine is damp and crowded. New sponge for 8-inch is needed. Thirty-seven 8-pound cartridges are badly damaged and should be removed. A disparity between charges and projectiles exists in this battery. A surplus of friction