CAMP SUMTER, Andersonville, February 17, 1864.

Captain CHARLES R. ARMSTRONG, Assistant Quartermaster:

SIR: Under the order given the other day by General Mercer in regard to the quota of hands form Marion County being turned over to me I have taken the liberty of stopping them at this post. There are fifty-four slaves and five free negroes, of which I will in a day or two forward you descriptive lists. Please inform me whether I shall forward them to you at Savannah to finish out their term of labor when they have completed my work here. With the force I now have I can manage to get along very well.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. B. WINDER,

Captain and Assistant Quartermaster.

CAMP SUMTER, Andersonville, February 17, 1864.

[General JOHN H. WINDER:]

GENERAL: It is absolutely impossible to hire exempts to drive cattle. This class of men find speculation much more profitable than anything else, and consequently they cannot he hired; such as would be willing to perform this service are physically unable.

In regard to the construction of quarters, store-houses, and hospital buildings, I have consulted with Mr. S. Hays, a practical mechanic, who has already been of great service to me in constructing the stockade, and he advises that plank houses can be built much more rapidly and at less expense to the Government than log ones. In addition to this the negroes now employed here will have, at the end of sixty days, to be returned to their homes, and I shall have no means of replacing them. I have intended to use logs whenever they could be used to advantage.

Mr. Stewart, a gentleman of this county, is already, at my instigation, putting up a mill only four miles distant, to saw and grind for this post. The sort of lumber required for the railroad are stringers, six inch by eight inch, and the plank which comes off the sides of these will give me the requisite lumber, and by this means both railroad and the Government will be supplied without injury to the other. Under these circumstances, as your present orders are imperative to construct the buildings of logs, I would respectfully ask that this matter be left to my discretion and that I be allowed to use logs or plank, as the occasion requires. Please give this matter your immediate attention, as a portion of the work will await your instruction in this matter.

As regards the pay of detailed men, I would respectfully refer you to the following quotation from an order from the Subsistence Department, to take effect form January 1, 1864:

The following is a substitute for paragraph 1133:

"The pay allowed detailed men at posts or stations without troops, or in counties, towns, or Government workshops, is $3 per day, in lieu of all commutation of allowances, except the regular monthly pay of a soldier, to be paid by the departments in which the men are detailed, &c. This regulation to continue in effect until 31st of December, 1864. "

These instructions were sent Major Locke, chief purchasing commissary for this State, who has kindly furnished me with a copy. The quartermaster's departments at, Augusta, Albany, and elsewhere in this State are paying their detailed men under this order &3 per diem.

Please telegraph me on this subject at once, as I am anxious to pay off the extra-duty men for last month, and please send me all the late