HDQRS. DEPT. SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA,
Charleston, S. C., December 29, 1862.

Brigadier General H. COBB,

Commanding District of Middle Florida, Quincy:

GENERAL: Your communication of the 22nd instant was read with interest by the commanding general, who instructs me to say that your views shall be carried out and supported as far as the military mean placed at his disposition will permit.

The proper Department has been applied to by telegraph for authority to secure the services of the gunboat Chattahoochee in the manner you have suggested.

Your directions to Captain Moreno as to the disposition and construction of batteries and the preparation of obstructions to be established in an emergency are fully approved, as also your course in connection with mail communications with points within the lines of the enemy.

Small-arms will be supplied to meet your wants if it is possible to procure them. Large quantities of fair arms are at Bermuda and Nasau awaiting transportation hither, some of which may soon be expected.

The commanding general, abundantly satisfied as to the soundness of your judgment, delegates to you all the authority that be possesses himself, or could exercise if present, for the defense of your district.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS JORDAN,

Chief of Staff.

CIRCULAR.] HDQRS. DEPT. S. C., GA., AND FLA,

Charleston, S. C., December 29, 1862.

In consideration of the short time of service for which the reserve regiments of the State of South Carolina have been received into service, and the confusion that must inevitably insure from any change in officers at this important juncture, when a decent on the coast and an attack on the city of Charleston are impending, and in view of the further fact that those regiments were mustered into the service of the Confederate States as organized and with their present officers for a period of ninety days, the commanding general feels imperatively obliged by the public interest to suspend any and all elections in said regiments of reserves for field officers, directed in General Orders, Numbers 52, Adjutant and Inspector General's Officer, Stated of South Carolina, December 23, 1862, until the orders of the War Department can be fully ascertained.

By command of General Beauregard:

THOMAS JORDAN,

Chief of Staff.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Richmond, Va., December 30, 1862.

Brigadier General H. COBB, General, Commanding, &c.:

SIR: Your letter of the 9th instant to the Adjutant-General has been

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