RICHMOND, VA., June 4, 1862.

Major-General PEMBERTON:

Under the circumstances communicated in your last dispatch you will delay compliance with my requisition. The troops being brought to Charleston can be sent on in a few days if the demonstration proves a feint. If you gain a victory you can do more for this line than was proposed.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

RICHMOND, VA., June 4, 1862.

Gov. FRANCIS W. PICKENS, Columbia, S. C.:

Your dispatches of yesterday received. It was not intended to weaken the force for defense of Charleston, but to obtain troops by withdrawing from positions where the season will prevent active operations. The proposition was induced by a seeming necessity. To your inquiry I answer, not safe. The event may be local; its consequences will be general.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

HEADQUARTERS STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, June 4, 1862.

Major-General PEMBERTON,
Commanding:

GENERAL: Adjutant-General De Saussure will deliver this to you. He is authorized to offer you any aid in the power of the State to assist you either in the field or in organizing the local reserves for the defense and protection of the city. He will inform fully on this point if desired. He is also intimately acquainted with the efficiency and strength of all city companies that may have been mustered into Confederate service.

I shall be most happy to serve and aid you in any manner that you may desire. We have mustered all our troops into Confederate service, and armed them almost entirely from our own State resources; but in furnishing a city police and holding the reserves of the State under orders to support you we may be of service, and for this purpose General De Saussure has full and ample authority.

Respectfully,

F. W. PICKENS.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA, Charleston, S. C. June 4, 1862.

Lieutenant Colonel C. K. HUGER, Fort Pemberton, S. C.:

COLONEL: The 24-pounder rifled guns to which you refer had better be placed in the battery with the rifled [banded] 32-pounder pointing down the river. You say nothing of cartridges for those guns. I trust you have them. There is not another pound of cannon powder in the arsenal. You had better take some of the blasting powder out of the torpedoes and mix with other powder for the mortars, and, if you have none other, for the 24-pounder also.

J. C. PEMBERTON,
Major-General, Commanding.