pounds of cannon powder. Captain Hunt has telegraphed Wright at Nashville to send, it but gets no answer. Can't you have it ordered own by passenger train? Commodore Hollins, whom I saw at New Orleans on Saturday, says that rifle powder willnot do for cannon. It will burst nine out of ten after a few fires, if used in full charges. He account for it by its small grain packing so much closer and occupying so much less space in the gun and its exploding all at once. For instance, closely packed rifle powder to the same weight willnto fill more than one-half the space in the gun that very coarse cannon powder will, and the cannon powder, he says, continues to burn clear to the muzzle of the gun, while the rifle powder all ignites instantly and the portion of the gun (very small) immediately surrounding or coming in contact has to bear the force of the entire charge, while the cannon powder has double the length of gun, and hence double the strength of iron, to resist the force of the charge. There was a man here last night who seemed perfectly panic-stricken about Fort Pillow. He said there was only sixty-five small arms there for a regiment of men, and they greatly feared the enemy might seek the river at or below New Madrid and seize one of our boats and run down to Fort Pillow and take it in this defenseless position. I ask your serious consdieration to the fully arming and equipping Fort Pillow, and especially putting an able man in its command. There is by no means any security that the enemy willnot attempt to take possession of the river below you on the Missouri shore, and then the project of seizing one of our boats and taking the fort would be an easy job if it is in the condition described.

Yours, truly,

SAM. TATE.

[4.]

BRISTOL, TENN., November 13, 1861.

General A. S. JOHNSTON, C. S. Army,

Bowling Green, Ky.:

SIR: Agreeable to instructions from the Adjutant-General's Office, I have the honor to report that I have been assigned by the War Department (Special Orders, Numbers 216) to the command of troops to be stationed for the protection of the railroad from this point to Chattanooga, rebuilding bridges, and keeping open the communication. Stovall's battalion Georgia Volunteers is hourly expected from Richmond, and a regiment from General Bragg's command is ordered to report at Chattanooga as the force for this service. The country traversed by the road is represented as being in a very disturbed condition. Two bridges have been burned between this and Knoxville, one thence that Andrew Chattanooga. The telegraph wire is down. It is currently reported that Andrew Johnson was expected at Greeneville, his place of residence, on Sunday, the 10th, and that his country friends assembled to greet him. They were disappointed. A force of Unionists, some 1,000 strong, is known to be assembled at Elizabethton, on the Watauga, about twenty-five miles from this place, and I propose to move against them at the earliest possible moment. Another force is known to be encamped at Strawberry Plains, well on towrad Knoxville. Passengers continue to traverse the road, the only difficulty being detention from the destruction of bridges at the points named.

Very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant,

D. LEADBETTER,

Colonel, Provisional Army C. S.

[4.]