Alabama, aggregate present 680-is now under orders from Fort Morgan to Corinth.

There are here now about 1,500 unarmed and unorganized war troops. I have ordered a portion of them to Fort Morgan, to take the place of the Twenty-fourth Alabama. Besides these I have about 1,000 ninety-day volunteers from the country, armed with shot-guns, and about the same number of armed militia can be turned out in this city on an emergency. I do not speak accurately as to numbers, because the returns are exceedingly inaccurate, and we have no blank forms.

While the garrisons to Forts Morgan and Gaines may be able to repel any attack likely to be made on them soon, there is little or nothing to resist a land attack on the city if made in force.

You will see, general, from the foregoing statement that not only Pensacola, but this city and bay and the large and valuable armaments of Forts Gaines and Morgan, and the batteries at Cedar Point and nearer the city, are very much at the mercy of the enemy. From what the governor of this State tells me, I believe that if arms can be procured the force here can easily be so increased as to defend this place against any attack the enemy is likely to make soon.

A few weeks more and the climate will probably deter the enemy from undertaking extensive operations on the Gulf coast. In the mean time a few thousand arms here and at Pensacola might be of incalculable service to us. I have not received a gun of any short from the Government since I have commanded this department.

You will not, I am sure, general, understand me as writing this in any spirit of complaint. This is not at all my intention. The Department knows its own resources and the best way of applying them far better than I do. I only desire before turning over my command to state the condition of things here and at Pensacola.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

SAM. JONES,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT NO.1, C. S. A., New Orleans, La., April 15, 1862.

General GEORGE W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War:

SIR: I beg leave to report that the funds for the river-defense fleet which were sent me are nearly exhausted. The enormous price of every kind of materials has made the preparation very expensive, in addition to which the river pilots (Montgomery and Townsend), who are at the head of the fleet, are men of limited ideas-no system and no administrative capacity whatever. I very much feet, too, that their powers of execution will prove much less than has been anticipated. In short, unless some competent person, of education, system, and brains, is put over each division of this fleet, it will, in my judgment, prove an utter failure. No code of laws or penalties has been established, and it is difficult to decide how deserters from the fleet are to be tried and punished. There is little or no discipline or subordination, too much "steam-boat," and too little of the "man-of-war," to be very effective. The expenses of fitting up, provisioning, cooling, and paying advances so far on the fourteen ships are about $800,000. I have received $950,000, but have paid nothing as yet towards the $563, 000, at which sum the vessels