unaccompanied with an attack by water; but if it be a combined attack by land and water, can your men in the fort stand the shelling from the water side? If not, the question is, what can be done to repel the water attack? If the enemy should send down their iron-clad steamers it is questionable if you have any guns at Columbus to stop them, especially if they pass in the night, and the destruction of Memphis would be worth more to them than the posssession of Columbus. In the excitement of the moment your gunners would not hit them once in a hundred shots, and you will be thus exhausting your powder without any advantage. You have ordered the rapid construction of submarine batteries, and this seems now to be regarded by all as our only means of resisting the invasion by water. At a large meeting of our citizens on yesterday I offered a resolution, which was unanimously adopted, and I inclose it with others.* It refers to tendering you all the pecuniary aid that may be immediately required for the construction of these batteries. I did so because I am in a position here to know that the Government has no money here, and that men are gettin tired of working without pay. One of our largest contracts for shell must stop in a few days unless he can get money from this Department, and of this there is no prospect now. You cannot expect work expedited without means to pay for it, and regarding, as I do, this submarine-battery plan as worth more for our defense than anything else now, I thought it politic to enlist our capitalists, so that you might have all the cash you could need for the construction of 500 or 1,000 if so many were required.

The resolution was imprudently published in full in the Avalanche, though I do not know that any harm can result from it. If the river can be lined with these batteries above Columbus and one or two boats destroyed, it wouldmost likely stop the invasion by water, as no men are willing to rush upon an unseen, yet known, danger. If the invasion by water is stopped, the invasion on the Missouri side is prevented, for no column would then move down upon New Madrid, with the certainty of being cut off from Cairo by a heavy force thence across the river from Columbus. If we do not prevetn this descent by water it will be accompanied by one on the Missouri, as well as the Kentucky side; and New Madrid being seized, Columbus is cut off from the South by water. If these iron boats can pass us, New Madrid is not only seized, but held and Memphis is open to attack by shot and shell on river and by a land force advancing with the gun-boats on the Arkansas side. WIth Memphis goes the valley so far as the towns and plantations on the river are concerned. The interests involved here are far, very far greater than any on the Atlantic seaboard. All the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, have access to the ocean, and they do not feel the damages to their commerce and trade which the great Northwest feels in being cut off from the Gulf. Hence the latter will make most desperate efforts to cut their way down this river. On the other hand, where there is one life and $1 involved on our side in the triumph of the enemy on the Potomac, there are five lives and $5 in their triumph down this valley. I allude to these things to show that we may expect our foe to use extraordinary exertions to get control of the river and that every plan should be promptly adopted to prevent it. If fifty batteries will do good, 500 or 1,000 will do more good still, and we are not in a position to count their cost now. If you need aid in finishing 100 in a day instead of twenty our men say you shall have it; and with such assurance, the force now at work upon them can be readily doubled. Allow me, general, to make

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*Not found.

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