this request from a sincere desire to remove causes of misapprehension, to promote peace in California, where I have lived nearly ten years, and tried to perform every duty of a citizen who loves his country, and where all my earthly interests are staked. I am certain that the publiction will do good, and will be an act of justice alike to Bishop Kavanaugh and General McDowell.

If you favor me with an answer, address me at San Jose.

I am, very respectfully,

O. P. FITZGERALD.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF UTAH,
Camp Douglas, Utah Ter., Numbers 59.
Near Great Salt Lake City, July 26, 1864.

Major Edward McGarry, Second Cavalry California Volunteers, will proceed to Camp Connor, Utah Ter., and assume command of the Second Cavalry California Volunteers.

By command of Brigadier-General Connor:

M. G. LEWIS,
Assistant Adjutant-General, U. S. Volunteers.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC,

San Francisco, July 27, 1864.

Brigadier General RICHARD DELAFIELD,

Chief of Engineer Corps, Washington, D. C.:

DEAR GENERAL: I took occasion a few days since to make, in company with some of the principal U. S. officers, civil and military, and citizens of ths city, an inspection of the fortifications and armament of this harbor. I did this before I had heard of the appropriation by Congress for the land defenses of this city, and with the view of impressing on the company the necessary for such defenses, with the ultimate object of obtaining the necessary means from the State or city to enable me to make these land defenses myself, in case the matter could not be gotten through Congress and an emergency should arise for their immediate constructions. Our excursion had an effect I was not calculating upon. It materially weakened the confidence which, to a certain extent, had heretofore been enjoyed by the residents here in the sufficiency of water defenses themselves. This as much, if not more, on account of the guns and ammunition as of the works which they were intended to arm. The charts of the harbor will show you the islands, the width of the channel, and depth of the water, but will not inform you of the prevailing winds blow from the sca right into the gate; nor of the fogs which for a large of the year enable vessels (as was the case when I arrived) to get quite inside before being seen. The Golden Gate is about as wide as the Narrows at New York, but the gate here opens right at once upon the broad ocean and not a into a lower bay. On account of the width of the channel at the Golden Gate and the deep water at Lime Point, the work at Fort Point, about the size and kind of Fort Richmond, would be no barrier against steam vessels. Lime Point is a cliff wich water at its base so deep and so swift that a lead has never (Captain Elliot, engineer, says) found bottom. To blast this cliff and build up a castle-work of masonry on the shelf is the labor of years at a cost of a million. It would not meet the existing emergency to do anything with it, and I would not in the present exhausted condition of the country advise its being even