HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND FLORIDA,
Charleston, S. C., February 17, 1864.

Brigadier General G. J. RAINS,

Sub-Marine Defenses:

GENERAL: I am instructed by the commanding general to say that you are authorized to take with you to Mobile the officers and men named in your letter of this date.

You will by direction of these headquarters notify the colonel of the Twenty-sixth South Carolina Volunteers, the captain of Lafayette Artillery, and captain of Company E, Eleventh South Carolina Volunteers, that those belonging to their commands are authorized to leave with you. You will call on the quartermaster's department for transportation.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

JNO. M. OTEY,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CHARLESTON, February 17, 1864.

Colonel D. B. HARRIS,

Chief Engineer of Department:

COLONEL: In obedience to your order I have just measured the angle at which the enemy's shell penetrated the house Numbers 65 King street. I obtained access to upper story and found the perpendicular height from floor to point of entrance 9 feet 10 inches, and on the floor to point of exit, 9 feet 10 inches. This shell appears to have been a 100-pounder. I have measured also several in the market, where the resistance was very slight, and find them as follows:

One 100-pounder, perpendicular height 17 feet 7 inches, base line 16 feet 10 inches, 47^ 45'.

One 100-pounder, perpendicular height 19 feet, base line 18 feet, 48^ 15'.

One 30-pounder, perpendicular height 13 feet, base line 8 feet, 58^ 30'.

One 30-pounder, perpendicular height 14 feet, base line 10 feet, 55^.

I have the honor to be, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. H. LUCAS,

Engineer City Defenses.

GEORGETOWN, February 17, 1864.

General G. T. BEAUREGARD:

DEAR GENERAL: I have addressed you several times officially on the subject of the inadequacy of our defense and our forces here to making anything like a respectable defense. I take the liberty now to trouble you with a few lines upon the same subject in an unofficial note, for the truth is it would not be safe to tell, except in a whisper, the true story about the condition of things in this military district. The simple fact is that we are here only on sufferance. It may surprise you to hear that I could not concentrate