WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A., Richmond, Va., June 17, 1864.

Brigadier General JAMES CHESNUT, Jr.,

Columbia, S. C.:

GENERAL: I inclose a copy of a telegram from General Jones.* The propriety of the call for the reserve forces is submitted to your own discretion after a consultation with General Jones. I appreciate as fully as you can the importance of retaining the reserves at agricultural production, but the emergency may be like that of summoning from the field to put out a fire or defend the homestead from the robber.

Very respectfully,

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

[35.]

COLUMBIA, June 18, 1864.

Hon. J. A. SEDDON,

Secretary:

Yours of 17th quoting telegram of General Jones received this morning. I have thirty-six companies organized, but not a gun or ounce of ammunition. Can order the troops as they are whenever requested, as do not believe Charleston to be in danger at this time, nor will be until the enemy shall be strengthened much beyond his present force. I respectfully ask that I may be permitted further and immediately to investigate the true condition of things; therefore I am required to break up the agriculture of the country. If the occasion demands it, of course it must be done. My all is at stake here and I am hardly less alive to our entire condition than others. Already I have been compelled to send forces to Greenville, Clarendon, and Macon to aid the enrolling officers to suppress violence and punish marauders. I desire as soon as I can to scour the mountains and restore peace and safety.

JAS. CHESNUT, Jr.,

General.

(Same to General Bragg.)

[35.]

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Tallahassee, June 20, 1864.

Major General PATTON ANDERSON,

Lake City, Fla.:

GENERAL: Your esteemed favor of the 15th instant is before me, in which you inquire "if in your (my) opinion the military forces in the State (exclusive of the reserves) are at this time ample for its defense, either against small raiding parties or for the capture and control of the deserters?" I have no hesitancy in replying that since the forces have been withdrawn from the State, which were in it when I addressed the President upon the subject, the forces left, embracing the reserves, are insufficient for the defense of the State, and under existing arrangements are incapable of protecting the State from the aggressions of deserters and traitors if there shall be raid made by even small parties of the enemy. The two cause which induced me to write to the President have been removed - first, the organized forces then in the State; second, the opportunity of planting and cultivating crops. It is now

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*Probably embodied in next, ante.

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