to you that the assurances given are perfectly satisfactory. Of the erection of the batteries on either side, I have only to say that our views on that point are directly opposite.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,

A. J. SLEMMER,

First Lieutenant, First Artillery, Commanding.

U. S. STEAMER BROOKLYN, March 21, 1861.

[General SCOTT:]

GENERAL: I wrote to you a few days since asking you to decide the subject of command on this station. Since then Lieutenant Gilman has arrived. I hope, however, that you will give my communication a careful consideration, and will see the necessity of establishing a unity of command on the station. As I mentioned in my communication, it is indispensable that there should be a perfect understanding between the troops and the naval forces, and the positions to be occupied beforehand be fully determined upon. How this can be done when the troops will have to land only when the fort is attacked I am unable to see. It cannot be done unless Lieutenant Slemmer is to be allowed to give me orders and to assign me a position, and to that I never will submit. I will endeavor to perform my duty, I trust, on all occasions, but I never will submit to be commended, directly or indirectly, by my junior. Moreover, when I enter the fort become its commander, and will be held responsible for its defense. This will be, probably, when the enemy is already before its walls, and when I must, of course, be ignorant of the dispositions which Lieutenant Slemmer has made for its defense. How am I to be held accountable for its defense when I have not the command until the last moment? I trust, general, that you will see at once the false position in which I am placed, and at once relieve me from it. If not, I enter my protest against being in any way held accountable for what may take place.

Until within a few days the naval and military forces have been supplied with fresh provisions from Warrington and Pensacola, but General Bragg has issued an order prohibiting any supplies being furnished to us, and prohibits the citizens communicating with us, except by special permission.

The conditions of the agreement entered into by the late Government and Major Chase and Senator Mallory give every advantage to the seceders, yet some of them deny the right of those two gentlemen to make it. They are not required to give any notice of its abrogation, and may attack the fort without a moment's notice, and under the most favorable circumstances it will be impossible to send any assistance to the fort from the ships in less time than the hours. Should there be the least panic among the troops within the fort it would probably be taken. There are about forty guns mounted, and the garrison is about one man