PULASKI.

Is seventy-nine miles from Nashville. There are lines thrown up by the army around this large town and something approaching an inclosed work on a distant hill, but there are no forts, properly so called, at this place. Pulaski will doubtless be garrisoned for a year at least. Perhaps a stockade inclosing barracks would be as good a defense as a fort. At any rate, I do not think it necessary now to commence building a redoubt at Pulaski.

COLUMBIA.

Is forty-five miles from Nashville, on the Decatur road. Its defenses are very imperfect. The fort on the high hill overlooking the city, were it finished, would have a good effect, and, properly garrisoned, would be sufficient for the reduced establishment of the department. Its design is a five-sided polygon, with three small bastions, each large enough when finished to contain a single gun. The work being built on a rocky hill, has no ditch. A dry stone scarp wall supports the parapet, and is an obstacle under the flank fire of the bastions to an attacking party. This wall is finished on four sides, and one bastion. The other bastions are raised simply to the height of the platforms. The fifth side is mostly open. The parapet is but partly formed, and the work is unserviceable in its present condition. The garrison does not appear to have given any attention to it. The interior is in bad condition, and has no magazine. There is no necessity for a work at this point, so long as the garrison of the city is large. Possibly there may never be any need of such defense; yet it would be good policy to hold a strong work overlooking so large a place as Columbia. I therefore think the garrison at the station should inclose the fort and put the battery of six guns in position within it, building at the same time a magazine large enough for the ammunition required for a field battery.

FRANKLIN.

Is eighteen miles from Nashville. The main work, Fort Granger, on the north bank of the Harpeth, is about 700 feet long, but narrow. It consists essentially of two bastion fronts looking northward, and connecting with the gorge line along the hill crest of the river bank, which is slightly re-entering. There is no ditch on the gorge which looks toward Franklin. The other faces have good ditches, though the scarps are somewhat crumbled down. The work was well built with breast-height gabionade revetments, and embrasures formed with facines. A long traverse extends nearly the whole length of this work. The sides of the traverse are supported by hurdle-work. All this kind of construction upon the fort is somewhat rotten and is therefore broken in many places. The bomb-proof, which leaks badly, consists of two apartments, one of which was probably used as a magazine. Fort Granger stands on an elevation about 100 feet above the river. It is now in reality dismantled, both guns and gun platforms having been removed; yet there is a small detachment living in tents within the fort. If a single company is deemed sufficient for the garrison, it should occupy Fort Granger and keep it in order. There is a small redoubt on a hill about one mile and a quarter distant from Fort Granger, which looks into this work. It has a little keep within it. Its occupation was important on account of its position. Other batteries were constructed on prominence to the north of Franklin, but they have long since been abandoned. The sketch accompanying this report shows the forms of the forts and their positions.