too late to plant or to cultivate successfully the corps which were then planted, and from which the necessary labor for their cultivation has been withdrawn. Information received from East and South and from a portion of Middle Florida assures me of what I apprehended would be the result of the destruction of the dwellings and property and of the arrest and continued custody of citizens of the State, women and children, by the order of Brigadier-General Gardner. The course pursued has increased the number of deserters and excited among them the vindictive purpose to avenge the wagons inflicted, and to liberate the women and children and aged men, who have been deprived of their liberty as well as of their property upon a suspicision of disloyalty. The treatment of these unfortunate people, some of whom have sons and relatives in Confederate service, and declare themselves ever to have been loyal to the Confederate States, seems to me to have been extremely cruel and an abuse of military authority, and I know of no law to justify such an exercise of power by any military commander. The effect has been to make an increased force necessary to protect the lives and property of loyal citizens from the retaliation threatened and now being executed by deserters and by those who in the immediate localities where the injuries were inflicted sympathize with or fear them. To remedy existing evils some plan should be adopted to restore to the women and children their liberty, and to afford them the means of living by their own personal exertions, and, if possible, to capture of destroy the deserters. To capture the deserters it is necessary that we should have a force upon water to co-operate with land forces, and I would respectfully invite your attention to a copy of a letter addressed by me to the Secretary of the Navy upon the subject, a copy of which has also been submitted to the consideration of the Secretary of War.

If houses similar to those burned could be rebuilt where they were destroyed, or others built in suitable places, and given to the women and children, and they be also furnished with cotton, cards looms and rations sufficient for their support for a few months, it would be but a simple act of justice to helpless, suffering and unprotected women and children, who are now in camps, guarded and supported at these expense of the Confederate Government, without the least probability of a beneficial result. If you concur with me in this opinion, I believe that if called upon citizens who are able will in many instances supply the labor to build the houses and move the families to them, and to assist the Government in providing for their support. When it was proposed to remove temporarily the families of deserters and their property, under the belief that it would induce the deserters to return to their commands, an effect produced in other States by such means, I had no reason to suppose that their houses and property would be destroyed, or that it would be necessary to do so, or I should have interposed objections, whether successfully or not. Sensible of the great danger to the achievement of the independence of the Confederate States to be reasonably apprehended from a conflict of authority between the State and the Confederate Governments, I have in some instances submitted to aggressions opon the rights of citizens by subordinate officers of the Confederate Government rather than interpose harshly the authority of the State to prevent or remedy them, and unwilling that a conflict should occur between the two regiments, to avoid it I was disposed to waive for a time the rights of the State and to leave to a future period the adjustment of their respective powly the Confederate Government has so many functionaries, each independent of the other in the performance of their respective duties,