position must be an officer not only experienced in infantry and artillery service, but also generally acquainted with engineering. The education, elementary and practical, of General Pemberton in the old Army and our own service has given him this requisite knowledge. I do not now find it practicable to send in his place another general who would equally well answer for the command. He is, besides, thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the department, and feels an interest in the works that are in progress for its defense, which would have to be acquired by a new commander.

I hope, after a conference with General Pemberton and when you are more fully acquainted with his plans you may have the same confidence in his ability and good judgment that has made me willing to intrust him with so important a command, and feel secure that all the aid you may give him will be well and zealously applied to the defense of a harbor of great and increasing value to the Confederacy, and of a city for the successful resistance of which have a desire heightened by the malignity which makes it the special object of attack and would doom it to destruction.

Very respectfully and truly, your friend and fellow-citizen,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

RICHMOND, VA., August 18, 1862.

Major-General PEMBERTON:

Suspend martial law to the extent you recommend and issue orders to that effect in my name.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,

Headquarters, Columbia, August 18, 1862.

Major General J. C. PEMBERTON, Commanding:

SIR: I received yours in relation to the restoration of civil authority where martial law has been declared. I am glad to hear of it. I had written the President on the 29th of last month urging him to restore the civil authority, and particularly in the country parishes. You recollect I, as Governor, proclaimed martial law over Charleston and 10 miles beyond the corporate limits, and afterward you got the President to enlarge it from the Santee to the Edisto, including parishes that run 50 miles up in the interior, where there are not even military companies stationed to execute the law, and as all civil authority was suspended, of course there has been no law during the operation of martial law. I take great pleasure in saying that we have divided off the State into sections in order to supply you with negro labor, and there is no doubt but that the measure will be ample for all you want; but I most respectfully suggest that if you were to assign some officer like Colonel Lamar, who is a practical manager of negroes and entirely identified with the country, specially to take charge of all labor to be sent down and to direct and control it under the plans and requisitions of your engineers, the owners of the negroes would feel satisfied, and in addition to this he would, as an energetic, practical man, get far more work done for you. When I first occupied Morris Island to erect the channel batteries there and the batteries on Cum-