other private property as much as possible. Only such things as could be used by the enemy in the prosecution of the war are required by the act of Congress to be destroyed.

G. W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War.

RICHMOND, VA., May 6, 1862.

Major General MANSFIELD LOVELL,

Camp Moore, La.:

I see no reason for the destruction of the barracks and arsenal at Baton Rouge. You will therefore preserve them, unless, in your opinion, there is some urgent reason for their destruction.

G. W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War.

NEW ORLEANS, May 8, 1862.

[The SECRETARY OF WAR:]

In the perilous and entirely isolated position in which we find ourselves in this once glorious city of New Orleans, and under the pressure of the calamities which have befallen us, bearing, as it were, by common consent, the burden and responsibility of a trust so complex and arduous as that which it imposed upon me, I feel authorized, in the absence and during the flight of all our State authorities, to address myself to Major-General Lovell, commanding at Camp Moore, and to Major-General Beauregard, commanding at Corinth, and, through the latter, to the President of the Confederate States, for the purpose of obtaining some information concerning the ulterior designs of the Government with reference to this doomed city, that the good citizens, in whose breast still lingers not only hope, but faith in the success of the great struggle in which we are engaged, may have some direction to guide them in the course which coming events may command them to adopt and in the efforts which they may be disposed to make an vindication of their independence.

The city has been deserted by all such as has moneys or other resources of the Government under their control, and is left without official direction and without means for supplying the necessities which that desertion has left unprovided for.

Vast amounts of property, such as coal, guns, small-arms, and ammunition of every shape and form, have been abandoned without any steps having been taken to protect them from the grasp of the invader and secure their possession to the Confederate Government. They still lie in the places where they had been stored up, at the mercy of the enemy, without a word of instruction from any quarter as to what should have been done with them, and without a single cent being left anywhere to provide security for the same.

The entire crew of the McRae, 108 in number, and the scattered remnants of the soldiers that retreated from Camps Lovell and Chalmette, and from the forts below and around New Orleans, are dispersed throughout the city, prowling about in the streets asking for their pay, and having no bread to put in their mouths or to give to their families, and exposed to the temptations which the enemy fails not to hold out to them, to entice them into the Federal banks.

We are threatened with measures on the part of the Federal commander