dere four companies of your regiment and the regimental quartermaster to report to you. There will also be delivered at the same time subsistence and forage for about sixty days and 60,000 rounds of cartridges (caliber .69), for all of which Quartermaster Kelly has receipted. The remaining three companies of your regiment, under Major Drew, will go to Fernandina, to re-enforce the garrison at that point. The post at the mouth of the Saint John's, at which Captain Sleeper, Fourth New Hampshire Volunteers, with his company, is now stationed, will also be abandoned. What the arrangements in regard to commands and brigades will be I am unable to say at present. Until further instructions are received you will therefore consider yourself as the commander of the post at Saint Augustine, and make your reports to the headquarters of General Benham, commanding the Northern District. Captain Ransom's battery, likewise on the Belvedere, is to proceed to Hilton Head on that vessel without delay. Please afford the steamer all dispatch in unloading. I shall advise that the Belvedere or some other light-draught steamer be sent back to ply between Fernandina and Saint Augustine.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. G. WRIGHT,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS THIRD BRIGADE,
Fernandina, Fla., April 10, 1862.

Lieutenant Colonel H. BISBEE, Jr.,

Ninth Maine Regiment, Commanding Post, Fernandina, Fla.:

COLONEL: Three companies of the Fourth New Hampshire Regiment, now on board the Cosmopolitan, are to be added to the garrison of your post, and I have instructed their commander, Major J. D. Drew, to report to you. As it is desirable that companies of the same regiment be kept together so far as possible, you will relieve those of the Ninth Maine, now at Fort Clinch, by these three companies of the Fourth New Hampshire Regiment. In withdrawing the forces from Jacksonville it was necessary for the security of such of the inhabitants as had given free exhibition to their Union sentiments to remove also, and I have brought them with me, with such of their effects as our means of transportation permitted. To these people you will assign such of the vacant houses in Fernandina as may be needed for their temporary homes, and, as many of these people have lost their all and will not have the means of purchasing provisions, you are authorized to furnish them from the Government supplies at the post to the extent necessary, not exceeding one ration to each person of twelve years old and over and a half ration to those under that age. Such persons among them as have the means of paying for their subsistence must of course do so. Provisions supplied under this authority must be regularly issued, and you should appoint an officer to superintended the same, if necessary, and to make the proper returns thereof.

I shall proceed to Hilton Head with the Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, and as I am not sure what arrangements will be adopted in regard to commands, brigades, &c., you will make your reports and returns, till further orders, to the headquarters of the North District. Requisitions for supplies will be made to the same headquarters.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. G. WRIGHT,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.