first safe opportunity, as the Secretary of the Navy, from whose appropriations they were drawn, needs the amount for sterling exchange.

With high regard, your obedient servant,

J. A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

MORTON, MISS., July 24, 1863.

General S. COOPER:

Your dispatch of 22nd, relieving me from command of Department of Tennessee, received. Major-General Maury thinks attack on Mobile threatening. I request that [H. D.] Clayton's brigade, belonging to Mobile garrison, and sent by me to General Bragg in emergency, may be ordered back immediately. Major-General Maury has but 2,500 men for land defense.

J. E. Johnston.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, Va., July 25, 1863.

General JOSEPH E. Johnston,

Morton, MISS.:

I am requested by the Secretary of the Treasury to instruct that all cotton belonging to the Government liable to fall into the hands of the enemy, which cannot be removed, be destroyed.

J. A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

MOBILE, ALA., July 29, 1863.

General S. COOPER:

I came here because Major-General Maury apprehends attack. His scouts at Pensacola report Admiral Farragut went north yesterday, which indicates no attack. Officers from Vicksburg report that all troops go up the river.

J. E. Johnston.

MOBILE, ALA., July 29, 1863.

(Received at Richmond, Va., July 30.)

General S. COOPER:

What is the extent of my command? I return to Morton to-night.

J. E. Johnston.

MORTON, MISS., July 30, 1863.

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON:

I conversed this morning with Major [H. M.] Mathews, of the artillery, just from Vicksburg, who says that one of Major General M. L. Smith's staff told him that Grant had sent very few troops up the river, but about the 22nd had seventeen transports of troops down. Others had preceded these. Reports from different sources all so contradictory that no opinion of the enemy's intentions can be formed. The officer above named says that the Federals destroyed everything connected with cultivation of ground between Jackson and Big Black River, including growing crops.

J. E. Johnston.