NORFOLK, VA., August 2, 1861.

Major General L. POLK, Commanding Department Numbers 2, Memphis, Tenn.:

SIR: I have the honor to state for your information that there will be some little delay in getting the fifty guns forward for want of transportation. It will perhaps be to-day week before the last shipment can go from here. I regret to find that these guns will have to be transferred at Bristol, Tenn., to other cars, by which some further delay will be experienced. I shall go to Richmond on Monday to ask from President Davis an order for a share for our river defenses of the many fine things preparing here for the enemy. Had your requisition been delayed but a few days the last gun would perhaps have gone from here to defend some creek or inlet which I have never heard of, and which, if the enemy were so idle as to think of entering, could have no influence upon the fate of the war. I fear that all the best guns have gone to places of secondary importance, and that the best projectiles are to follow in the same direction. To divert some of them to our own part of the country I will (though not specially authorized by you) do what I can. I wish that the chief of ordnance for Department Numbers 2 could contract for seasoned ash timber to make rammers and sponge staffs and heads. This timber might be fire-seasoned in a few days. I am sure we should have a strong battery near the Narrows, at the lower part of Randolph Bluffs, and this without weakening the Fulton defenses. Professor Maury, C. S. Navy, tells me that he is coming West to plant sub-marine batteries or magazines. There is no place from Cairo to New Orleans, in my opinion, so suitable for these as at the lower point of the Randolph Bluffs. I took the liberty of saying somerthing in my note from Richmond regarding the general scarcity of powder, which is to be, I fear, the most serious want of the Confederacy. If there should be any additional supplies received from the Ohio country, I hope the ordnance department may think of subjecting it to proof trial before paying for it. If in these notes which I may take the liberty of addressing to you I should sometimes seem to go beyond the strict bounds of my official position, I trust that you will see in my doing so no want of respect for your superior authority and information, but a zeal only to do what I can for our cause.

I am, very respectfully,

I. N. BROWN,

Lieutenant, C. S. Navy.

[4.]

JACKSON, MISS., August 3, 1861.

(Via Chattanooga, Tenn.)

His Excellency PRESIDENT DAVIS:

Artillery and cavalry companies impatient for service. Confederate officers seeking to induce them to go to Missouri. Do you want them sent there? Our sea-coast is threatened. Nearly all our arms carried into Confederate service. Send me some, if possible.

J. J. PETTUS.

[Indorsement.]

Answer. - Companies of artillery may be needed at home. Cavalry might go to Arkansas. We cannot now send arms, though Mississippi has the highest claim for them and shall be remembered.

J. D.

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