BRAZOS SAN IAGO, TEXAS, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 11th instant. Transportation can be provided here for all the troops that may be drawn from the army under the command of General Taylor, and for all the ordnance, ordnance stores, and other supplies, which may be drawn either from this depot or from New Orleans. The public transports-I mean those owned by the United Statesthat can be spared for the contemplated operations, it is estimated will carry three thousand men, with all their supplies. Vessels can be chartered here on favorable terms for any additional transportation that may be required. The point of concentration, Pensacola, is too distant from our object-secrecy in our country is out of the question. When I left New Orleans on the 6th instant, the public seemed to understand, as well as the officers who are to conduct the operations, that Vera Cruz was the object of attack. General Scott, who is here, has decided to concentrate at the islands of Blanquilla and Lobos, a few miles southeast of cape Roxo, and some fifteen or twenty miles north of Tuspan. Southwest of these islands is perhaps the best anchorage on the gulf-sufficient for a hundred ships, well sheltered from the northers. The English have used this anchorage in their smuggling operations more than a century; and it is the place where their ships that take quicksilver to Tampico, for the mines of San Luis and Catorce, await the returns from the interior. From these islands to Vera Cruz, distant about two hundred miles, the coast is clear and deep; throughout the whole distance there is from 4 to 6 fathoms water at from one to two miles from the shore. The only points in the whole distance presenting the slightest danger are some rocky ridges stretching out from Juan Angel and Pont Gorda, which every seaman who has ever been on the coast knows how to avoid. The point selected by the general being the resort of vessels coming to Tampico, will distract the enemy's attention by rendering it doubtful whether San Luis or Vera Cruz be the object of attack. We have reports from the interior that Santa Anna is near Saltillo with a large force. I do not believe the force so large as it has been represented; but if it is, so much the better-seven thousand men will soon be concentrated to meet it, and will give a good account of it. The quartermaster's department is far from being efficient: the officers are efficient individually, but they are not sufficiently numerous for the highly responsible and laborious duties that devolve upon them. I earnestly recommend that four additional quartermasters, to be taken from the army, and ten additional assistants, to be taken from the subalterns of the army, be authorized by law; and I further recommend that a regimental quartermaster be appointed to each regiment, to be taken from the subalterns of the regiments respectively, with the same additional pay and emoluments as are now allowed to adjutants. This additional force would enable the department to perform every duty as it should be performed. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, TH. S. JESUP, Major Gen. and Quartermaster General. The Hon. WM. L. MARCY, Read." I concur in the opinion that the numerical force (officers) of the Quartermaster's Department is not sufficient for the war; and hoping that the additional major per regiment, and the additional 2d lieutenant per company, will be authorized by Congress, I recommend that Brevet Major General. Jesup's suggestions be adopted. DECEMBER 28, 1846. WINFIELD SCOTT. BRAZOS SAN IAGO, TEXAS, SIR: Adverting to my letter of the 28th ultimo, it is due to General Patterson to say that he gave orders to the Quartermaster's Department for the necessary train and supplies the moment, as he informed me, that he was apprised of the nature of the movement he was required to make; and he bears testimony to the zeal and promptitude of Captain Myers, on whom the labor of forming the train and providing the supplies devolved. A delay of a day or two occurred on account of a portion of the forage not arriving in time; but that arose not from neglect on the part of any officer of the department, but from the loss of two steamboats employed in sending supplies hence to the Rio Grande, and of other vessels employed in lightering, and in similar service with the steamboats. The moment the deficiency was observed, it was promptly supplied. I beg that this letter may be filed with my letter of the 28th ult., above referred to; and I have the honor to be, most respectfully, sir, your obedient servant, The Hon. WM. L. MARCY, TH. S. JESUP, Quartermaster General. Secretary of War, Washington city. BRAZOS SAN LAGO, TEXAS, January 1, 1847. SIR: A very heavy expense is constantly being incurred by the damage of subsistence and other public stores, occasioned by the stores not being put up in casks or sacks sufficient to preserve them from the weather. The consequence is, that the public property, after it has been placed at the points at or near where it is required for use, at a heavy expense, is found to be entirely unfit for service; and it must be replaced at an enormous expense, both in the cost of the articles required to replace those damaged and in the transportation, owing to the haste which is often necessary in purchasing and transporting them. Great inconvenience, and sometimes additional expense and loss, is occasioned by the stores not being put up in packages of suitable size. The damage and consequent loss, as well as the inconvenience, might be prevented in a great measure by putting up bread, flour, sugar, coffee, and bacon in India-rubber sacks convenient for packing, and pork, vinegar, &c., in half barrels. The ordnance stores should be in kegs or boxes, covered with India-rubber or water proof leather cases; and no package should exceed eighty pounds in weight, or at the utmost a hundred pounds. The advantage would be, that the supplies would be preserved from damage, and the packages would be of convenient size for packing on mules. The subsistence and ordnance departments would, in the first instance, have to incur some additional expense; but they would save in the course of a campaign, by the preservation of their stores, more than a hundred times this additional expense; and the quartermaster's department would avoid the enormous expense of double transportation. Besides, the army would avoid, by the convenient size of the packages, the delay which often takes place in reducing the packages, when it becomes necessary to change from wagons to mules. These changes in the manner of preparing the packages of the two departments referred to, would save to the treasury at least twenty per cent. of the expense now incurred in the replacing of damaged stores and in transportation. The army in the field costs at least $50,000 a day. Suppose it be necessary to change the mode of transportation from wagons to mules, and suppose that two days only would be required to reduce the packages; there would be a loss of $100,000 by the delay alone, besides the loss of the casks, boxes, &c., in which the supplies were originally put up. I have considered the question thus far merely as a fiscal question; but view it for a moment in its relation to the military efficiency of the army, and it assumes far greater importance. Were the subsistence and ordnance stores put up and secured as I propose, the army would be always ready to move, have its stores always sound, and be able to change from one mode of transportation to another without the slightest delay, by which a far greater advantage would result in the increased efficiency of the troops than in the amount of mere pecuniary saving. Your authority is necessary to effect the changes recommended, or I would not trouble you with the matter at this time, when you have Congress upon your hands, and of course have full employment for every moment. With great consideration, I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, TH. S. JESUP, Secretary of War, Washington city. The Hon. WM. L. MARCY, BRAZOS SAN IAGO, January 2, 1847. SIR: I had several communications last night from the interior. The reports that reached us some days ago of Santa Anna being in the neighborhood of Saltillo, prove to be unfounded. The panic was produced by a small party that approached Saltillo, perhaps composed of marauders, or more probably of rancheros who had deserted the standard of Santa Anna and were on their return to their homes. General Scott left for the interior on the 29th ultimo, and I am taking active measures to have every thing depending on me ready for his operation. The quartermaster's department I find is called upon to do a great deal that should be done by other branches of the staff. So far as General Scott's operations go, I shall have every thing done that is necessary, whether it belongs to my department or to other departments to do it. I have been recently called on for sling carts for the removal of heavy ordnance. I will have them furnished, but I must send to New Orleans for them. It is the duty of the ordnance department, however, to furnish them, and to do a great deal more that the quartermaster's department is called upon to do. A corps of enlisted ordnance men, under a competent ordnance officer, is required here and at every depot of the army in the field. Colonel Bomford sent such a corps to the army in Florida, under an able officer, when I commanded that army. There is quite as much necessity for such a corps here; and there will yet be greater necessity for such a corps with General Scott. Artificers and laborers can be hired for service at the arsenals, but they cannot be readily hired for service in the field. Enlisted men only should be sent to the army. Had a proper topographical survey been made of the Rio Grande, and of the bays and harbors over and through which the supplies of the army have to pass, much inconvenience and expense would have been saved. The army has been in the field between seven and eight months, and yet the only information I have either of the river, the bars, or the harbors, is that which I have been able to pick up from steamboat and ship captains and pilots; and the only survey of the Rio Grande I have seen is one made by Captain Austin, of Texas, several years ago. Now all the information of this kind, necessary for every department of the army, ought to have been furnished by the topographical corps in the first month of operations. Either that corps should be made to furnish the information necessary for the several departments of supply, or I must ask that provision be made by law to attach to the quartermaster's department a topographical corps to serve at least during the war. The quartermaster general of Great Britain directs the operations of that corps in time of war; and the department cannot perform its duties efficiently here without the information in advance, which officers of that corps are bound to furnish, and which they only can furnish. Two or three officers of that corps might have been employed, greatly to the advantage of the public, in surveys and in constructing works in this neighborhood during the last summer. A rail road hence to the mouth of the Rio Grande would have saved at least half a million of dollars during the present campaign. spoke to Colonel Abert on the subject during the last summer; b.t I believe nothing has been done in the matter. There is constant danger now of the supplies of the army failing, so many steamers and other vessels, heretofore employed in transporting stores by sea to the Rio Grande, have been disabled and wrecked; and, besides, the weather has been and is so bad as greatly to obstruct the navigation round to that river with the boats remaining, and I have found it necessary to order Captain Hill to form a train of two hundred wagons to keep up the communication by land. The distance is about ten miles; but there is a creek or bayou (Boca Chica) on the route to be ferried; that, at least, should have been bridged; and the work should have been executed by the topographical engineers. I have taken the liberty of writing to you in relation to the ordnance and topographical departments, because I find my own department seriously embarrassed by having to perform duties which properly appertain to the former, and by want of information which should have been furnished by the latter. These circumstances, I hope, will be a sufficient apology for thus troubling you. With high consideration and respect, I am, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. W. L. MARCY, TH. S. JESUP, Quartermaster General. Secretary of War, Washington city. BUREAU OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS, Washington, January 15, 1847. SIR: The letter from General Jesup of the 2d January has been duly received at this office. The subjects of General Jesup's letter were, as he correctly states, matter of conversation between us before his departure for the south; but I regret that he has not stated the real difficulty then presented to him, and that he has lost sight of it in the remedy he proposes. The difficulty is in the want of funds, without which we cannot make the surveys to which he refers, and the railroad and bridges. In the estimates of this year, an item for surveys with the army was submitted. Should that be granted, the surveys referred to can be made. But there will yet be a deficiency for roads and bridges. These cannot be made without materials, laborers and mechanics, and these cannot be obtained without funds. It is difficult to give exact estimates for such purposes, as it cannot well be known at present what roads or bridges will require to be made and repaired. But, in order to do all that is in my power, I have the honor to submit for your consideration the following esti mate: |