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410 Series I Volume I- Serial 1 - Charleston

Page 410 OPERATIONS IN FLORIDA. Chapter IV.

[Inclosure D.]


HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF FLORIDA,
Fort Pickens, May 8, 1861.

Captain H. A. ADAMS, Commanding Naval Forces off Pensacola:

CAPTAIN: I have you this morning on the subject of allowing provisions to enter Pensacola Harbor, and am gratified that you have so far anticipated my wishes. I am not prepared to express a decided opinion as to the foreign vessels, but as the port has not been actually declared in a state of blockade I should suppose it to be expedient to let them pass, unless they actually have on board articles contraband of war. I am, however, decidedly of opinion that no United States vessel, containing any article which will nourish or assist the enemy, should be permitted to enter, and most certainly no one, either American or secession, from a rebel State. I regret that you did not feel it to be your duty to detain the two steamers, they being in my opinion lawful prizes.

I have done nothing in relation to the batteries for the guns of the Brooklyn because I distinctly understood you to say that you could not possibly spare any guns from her. I may also say that other and more pressing work would have prevented my doing it, but that I will have an engineer detailed to lay out and superintend such a work whenever you may wish to commence it, presuming, as I do, that your officers will wish the whole to be a Navy work.

Is not the unloading of the Philadelphia and provisioning and supplying this work of very paramount importance to ballasting the Supply? I think that now, while the sea is smooth and the enemy quiet, nothing should take the boats off, and I most respectfully urge that the ballasting the Supply may be deferred until after the steamer is unloaded.

I am much obliged for the papers.

I am, captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

HARVEY BROWN,

Colonel, Commanding.

[Inclosure E.]

FORT PICKENS, FLA., May 9, 1861.

Captain GEORGE L. HARTSUFF, Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I have the honor to addressing you for the purpose of calling the attention of the colonel in command of the department to the condition of the men of Company G, First Artillery, stationed at this post. Said company has been for the last three years stationed in this vicinity, and for the last four months confined to the limits of this post. During the latter period it has been almost altogether deprived of fruits and vegetables, and during the whole of the three years but very scantily supplied therewith. Whilst occupying this fort the men and officers of the company have been taxed to their utmost capacity by physical labor and incessant watching night and day against attacks from the enemy. A number of cases of scurvy have already appeared among the men, some of them of considerable severity, and there is great reason to fear the general prevalence of the disease among them. The approach of the hot season will tend to aggravate the disease. The supplies of anti-scorbutics in the commissary stores I trust will be sufficient to prevent the appearance of the disease among the men lately arrived from the North, but I do not believe in their efficacy to relieve the cases which have already appeared or to prevent the recurrence of new cases among the men of Company G, First Artillery. Were it in your power to do so, I


Page 410 OPERATIONS IN FLORIDA. Chapter IV.