Abstract from Monthly Return of the Districts of East and Middle Florida, Brigadier General Joseph Finegan commanding, for November, 1862.

Present for duty.

Aggrega- Aggrega-

Command. Officers Men. te te pre-

present. sent and

absent.

1st Special Battalion

Florida Infantry (4 15 299 358 418

companies).

Three independent

companies of 6 168 206 276

infantry.

Three companies of 11 119 172 267

Partisan Rangers.

Nine companies of

cavalry and Dunham's 35 636 758 1,035

battery*.

Gambie's battery. 2 115 121 164

Total. 69 1,337 1,615 2,160

---------------

*Dunham's artillery company is included with Bird's, Stewart's, Chambers', and Stephens' cavalry companies; but there is no way of determining its strength, and therefore all five companies are reported as cavalry.

---------------

HDQRS. DEPT. SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, Charleston, S. C., December 2, 1862.

His Excellency Gov. JOSEPH E. BROWN, Milledgeville, Ga.:

SIR: Your letter of the 29th ultimo has been received. I thank you for the considerate offer of placing under my control and that of the engineer officers to be designated by me the laborers required to obstruct the navigable streams of Georgia in pursuance to an act of the General Assembly. I avail myself with pleasure of said offer, and I have ordered my chief engineers for Georgia and Florida (Captain John McCrady and Theodore Moreno) to correspond with you directly on the subject. The latter officer is in charge of the obstructions of the Chattahoochee by order of the War Department.

After full inquiry and mature consideration I decided a few days ago to obstruct the Altamaha River at a favorable military position, Lake Bluff, about 1 1/2 miles below the Albany and Savannah Railroad. The officer specially in charge of said work and protecting battery is Captain John Howard, Provisional Army of the Confederate States, under the general instructions of Captain John McCrady.

The general plan of obstruction I have adopted for shallow rivers is simple, easily constructed, of little cost, and I hope will prove very effectual.

Any of the streams Your Excellency should consider ought to be obstructed would be reconnoitered as soon as an engineer officer could be selected for that object.

The conditions contained in your letter relative to the negroes furnished by you are accepted.

I remain, with respect, Your Excellency's obedient servant,
G. T. BEAUREGARD,

General, Commanding.

HDQRS. DEPT. SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA, Charleston, S. C., December 2, 1862.

Major D. B. HARRIS,

Chief Engineer, Department of South Carolina and Georgia:

SIR: You will at once adopt all necessary measures for the immediate excavation of a channel 13 feet in depth at high water in the Wappoo