[Third indorsement.]

ENGINEER BUREAU, March 4, 1864.

Respectfully returned to the honorable Secretary of War.

This railroad connection has been favorably considered, and Major Minor Meriwether, of the Engineer Corps, directed (with your approval) to take prompt measures for the execution of the work.

A. L. RIVES,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Acting Chief of Bureau.

[35.]

HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. CAROLINA, Georgia AND FLORIDA, Charleston, S. C., February 18, 1864.

Hon. W. PORCHER MILES, M. C.,
Richmond, va.:

MY DEAR COLONEL: I can but express my surprise at the seeming blindness of all classes to the motives and consequence of the movements of the enemy under Sherman from Vicksburg. Several days since I flet it my duty to send my views by telegraph to the War Department (see the inclosed copy marked A*) to avert, if possible, another Vicksburg disaster, for want of timely concentration of our dispersed forces. It is evident to my mind that if the enemy is actually burning the bridges in his rear, and has taken the field in force, with only a limited supply of provisions and munitions of war, he intends to change his base of operations from the Mississippi River to where he can renew those supplies when exhausted; manifestly some point on the Gulf of Mexico and as near to Mobile as practicable. Pascagoula must therefore be regarded as his first objective point and Mobile the second. Hence we ought to concentrate at once all our forces immediately available on the Pascagoula front to delay and prevent him from getting a foothold there, if possible; and heavy gangs of negroes should be at once employed felling trees and otherwise obstructing the roads, &c., in the enemy's front, rear, and flanks, to delay him until his supplies may be exhausted, or a sufficient force collected from contiguous departments to insure his utter destruction. But suppose the enemy shall have established himself at Pascagoula, whan when? If he can get into Mobile Bay with some gun-boats through Grant's Pass and remain there to cut off communications with Forts Morgan and Gaines he will undoubtedly do so; if not, he will at once land troops on Dauphin Island and proceed to the regular attack and reduction of Fort Gainese, with the assistance of the navy, if practicable; otherwise without it. This operation will probably take about two weeks. He will then establish batteries of long range, heavy Parrott guns, as against Fort Sumter, to batter down, in combination with the enemy's iron-clad gun-boats, the exposed walls of Fort Morgan, and endeavor to render that work untenable or harmless when his fleet shall penetrate Mobile Bay; thus cutting off all communications between that work and Mobile, and compelling its surrender in a few weeks more; say-two or three from the time of the fall of Fort Gaines. The enemy's fleet would then use the bay as a harbor, and the army at Pascagoula would transfer its base to the western shore of Mobile Bay, as close to the city as the depth of water and our batteries would permit, securing thus a lodgment as near the objective point as any army could possibly desire. The siege of Mobile would then regularly being, though the

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*See February 13, VOL. XXXV, Part I, p.603.

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