The First Georgia Regiment, very much reduced I numbers, was sent, some weeks since, to Georgia, to be recruited by conscripts, and more recently has been ordered to report to you for service. It is thought by the President important that this regiment should be recruited full, as he thinks it would prove more effective than raw troops, and you had better take care that enough conscripts be first obtained to accomplish this before you recommend expansion over too large a surface. This is the more important, as from the material of which this regiment was formed, more than ordinary reluctance may be felt to volunteer into it.

With cordial wishes for your success, most respectfully, yours,

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

[14.]

RICHMOND, VA., January 20, 1863.

Mr. F. L. DANCY,

Buena Vista, Fla.:

DEAR SIR: Your letter in reference to abandonment and loss to the enemy of the battery on Saint John's River has remained unanswered

thus long because received on the eve of my departure from Richmond upon a visit to the Southwest. I had not before seen so full an account of the circumstances of the case, and beg you accept my thanks for the particularity of your settlements. I have submitted your letter to the perusal of General Cooper. Florida regiments in Virginia and elsewhere have uniformly acted with gallantry and have received the applause of their commnanding generals. The bad conduct of the garrison at the battery can only be explained, therefore, in the manner in which you account for it. The loss of the position was a serious calamity, but it is be hoped that we shall be enabled not only to prevent further encroachments of the enemy, but soon to regain the whole of the territory now occupied by them.

Very truly, your friend,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

[14.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF MIDDLE FLORIDA,
Quincy, January 29, 1863.

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: I am in receipt of your letter of the 20th instant. If I had properly understood the authorityconferred by your former letter I should have made the effort to raise the troops under it. I am satisfied, however, that I shall be more successful in the mode I had the hnor to suggest, and have determined on that course. Besides, if successful, it will place at the command of the Government that number of additional troops, and, as I trust and believe, well officered and disciplined. I inclose a copy of the circular I have issued, that you may be informed of the steps I have taken. I desired to have included the counties in Alabama on the Chattahochee River, as well as other counties in Georgia, but seeing your anxiety to confine my operations to as narrov limits as practicable, I have conformed my conduct to the wishes and policy of the Department. If Congress will so leslate as to authorize both the system of volunteering and the