CAMP LEE, December 26, 1861.

Brigadier-General RIPLEY:

GENERAL: In obedience to verbal orders received through your aide, I have the honor to report my regiment as organized but not full. Seven companies are here encamped, comprising in the aggregate 547 officers and men. I have 75 good muskets (percussion) and 415 flint-and-steel muskets utterly unfit for service; no transportation, but have been authorized by the quartermaster to purchase it, and will send agents to-morrow to do so. No knapsacks; 75 cartridge-boxes and bayonet scabbards; no ammunition. I hope to have my regiment full in the course of a week or ten days. I am under orders for General Evans to march as soon as ready to Adams Run.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. H. MEANS,

Colonel Seventeenth Regiment South Carolina Volunteers.

HEADQUARTERS OF STATE FORCES,
Savannah, Ga., December 28, 1861.

General R. E. LEE,

Commander-in-Chief:

GENERAL: I have assumed command of a division of State troops actually in the field. This, for reasons personal to myself, I had refrained from doing until a question as to their willingness to be transferred to the Confederate service, submitted to them by act of the legislature, had been decided. It is hardly necessary to say that, although in the immediate service of the State for State defense, I hold myself subject to your directions in all military operations looking to that end, and will make such times, and to such quarters as you may be pleased to designate.

From conversations with my friend General Lawton I learn that the necessity of this auxiliary force, in the character of a reserve, is fully recognized. I shall labor to render it efficient.

I am happy to add that my personal relations with General Lawton are of such a character as to insure between us the most cordial of feelings and a perfect harmony of action.

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

H. R. JACKSON,

Major-General, Commanding State Forces.

DEPARTMENT OF GEORGIA, C. S. A.,

Ordnance Office, Sec'd Mil. Dist., Brunswick, December 30, 1861.

Captain R. M. CUYLER,

Ordnance Office, Savannah:

DEAR SIR: By General Mercer's direction I write to urge upon you the necessity of sending us more powder. It is his belief, in which all who have seen the batteries concur, that we can whip off the fleet upon the first attack; but that if it is renewed the next day, as in all probability it would be, our powder would be exhausted, and they could pass us without our being able to fire a gun. Officers and men are all confident of success and anxious to redeem the Port Royal disgrace, for so they all consider it, and I think they will if the powder does not give