ton, limiting you requisition to, say, 150 rounds per gun. I will do all in my power to supply you.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. GORGAS,

Colonel and Chief of Ordnance.

BATTERY MARSHALL, January 12, 1863.

Captain W. F. NANCE, Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I have the honor to report that I left Sullivan's Island on the morning of the 6th instant, in obedience to orders issued to me to proceed to Bull and the intermediate islands for specified purposes. When I reached Dewees' Island I found two gunboats watching the entrance at Dewees' Inlet, and two more at Carpers' Inlet. This, coupled with reports that reached me of the landing of a large number of the enemy on Capers' Island, caused me to proceed with caution. I left my command to collect what cattle they could on Dewees' and went on with a few men to Capers' Island. There were 2 men, probably negroes, seen there. The gunboats moving off on the 8th, I crossed my command over to Capers' Landing, on the back part of the island, and, although it was utterly impossible for the movement to be sent from out at sea, I had not landed over and hour before a gunboat at Bull Inlet commenced shelling. I went out to the front of the island to reconnoiter, and on my way shot a hog, which I left on the ground, and on returning, in about twenty minutes, I found the hog gone and tracks leading away from the spot. Both of these circumstances showed that I was closely watched (by negroes probably). Being anxious to take them by surprise in some way, I left Caper's Island at midnight on the 9th, leaving fires burning, and going off as quietly as possible to Bull Island. Landing before daylight, I marched rapidly to most of the houses on the island, and although I found fresh tracks, which I could see by the moonlight, and traces of recent fires, there was no one to be found. Before day I posted a line of sentinels entirely across the island and concealed the rest of my command. Soon after daylight two men were seen apparently following up the tracks of my party. These men, however, unfortunately made their escape. A gunboat lay in the bay back of the island; a schooner lay off the east end, and bark off the bar. On this an both my previous visits to this island I had abundant evidence of men having very recently been on shored, but I am perfectly convinced that while they have such watchful sentinels as the runaway negroes no surprise can be effected. These negroes can be, I suppose, removed by allowing a force to remain for some time on the island, until they can either hunt them out of their hiding places or by cutting off their communication with their friends force them after a time to give themselves up to avoid starvation. The island offers great facilities for the maintenance of a small force a long time against any number of men that they can probably spare from their vessels, and such a force could feed itself from the hogs, goats, &c., now running wild on the island in case of their being temporarily cut off. With regard to the cattle and horses on the different islands, I am sorry to say that I have been to do but little. I found it impossible to take the cattle alive, and therefore shot what I could and sent them in to the commissary. There are difficulties attendant on this that I did not foresee before trial; for instance, the fact that the cattle being very wild are frequently shot at long ranges, and running off some distance