ADJUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE, Montgomery, April 23, 1861.

First Lieutenant GEORGE B. COSBY,

Frankfort, Ky.:

SIR: As soon as you shall have carried out the instructions of the Governor of Kentucky, or are able to conform to these instructions, you will report, in person or by letter, to Captain Thomas H. Taylor, of the Army, wh o has been assigned to the duty of procuring men to be enlisted in the Army of the Confederate States, and fdrom him you will receive orders, and be governed accordingly. Captain Taylor will also supply you with funds. His address will be Frankfort, Ky., or you may hear of his being elsewhere.

Very respectfully, your obdient seervant,

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

[4.]

FORT MORGAN, April 23, 1861.

Colonel W. J. HARDEE, C. S. Army,

Commanding Fort Morgan:

COLONEL: I have received your letter of this date asking for a report of what is required to be done in the engineer's department at Grant's Pass, Fort Morgan, Fort Gaines, and elsewhere, in order to prevent the entrance of a hostile force into Mobile Bay. In my report relative to the defense of Grant's Pass, already submitted, I have recommended a floating battery for that place, to be got up and commanded by an officer of the Navy. This could probably be done by altering, strengthening, and arming some vessel already afloatt. At Fort Gaines, Dauphin Island, the scarp-walls are now some fifteen feet high throughout, and by building gates for the openings and mounting a few guns in barbette inside the place cansoon be made somewhat defensible. Haing done this, or simultaneously with it, the bastions, whose arches have been turned, should have their parapets built, and each bastion should be armed with one heavy pivot gun. Each was intended to mount a columbiad. Thus, within a reasonable time Foprt Gaines will be defense of the channel west of the main ship channel. But the channel between Forts Morgan and Gaines being nearly three miles and a quarter wide, both of these works combined do not effectively command the middle of it, where an eight foot channel is available to the enemy. Here I would anchor a floating battery; a bay steamer, perhaps, strengthened with bulwarks of timber covered with iron bars. Her fire combinde with that of the forts would command the narrow channel effectually, and her locomotive powers would enable her to cruise with effect in the daytime. At Fort Morgan the citadel should be made bomb-proof and rrecive a parapet of sand bags. These are the general dispositions urgently required for defense, adn together with east of Fort Morgan, are deemed indispensable. Under these arrangements Fort Morgan becomes truly defensible and the bay inaccessible landing on the shore of Mississippi Sound, and such landing cannot be prevented. Such a movement must be met and repulsed by the stout

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