Commander JOHN RODGERS, U. S. Navy,
Cincinnati, Ohio.

SIR: Your letter of the 8th instant, the first that has reached the Department from you, was received to-day. The requisitions for gunboats, for which you state you have contracted, are without authority from this Department. You were directed to proceed West and report to General McClellan, commanding the forces on the upper Mississippi, and it was distinctly stated in your instructions that that officer would make the necessary requisitions. The movement in that quarter pertains to the Army and not the Navy. Nor must the two branches of service become complicated and embarrassed by separate action or any attempt at a combined movement on the rivers of the interior. You are, then, subordinate to the general in command, to aid, advise, and cooperate with him in crossing or navigating the rivers or in arming and equipping the boats required for the army on the Western waters. Should be naval armaments wanted for any of the boats, or crews to manage them, you were specifically authorized to make requisition for either or both, but nothing further. The Department can not recognize or sanction any contract for boats. They are not wanted for naval purposes. If they are required for the Army, those whose business and duty it is to procure them will make requisitions on the War Department. There has been and is great sensitiveness among the boatmen and others on the Western rivers in relation to the water craft that might be required for the Army, and it was an especial object of the Department in framing your instructions to so restrict them as to avoid jealousy. Repeated applications have been made to the Department in regard to your movements and powers by Members of Congress and others, to all of whom unequivocal answers have been given that you were not authorized by this Department to purchase or build boats or make contracts. You were promptly telegraphed, immediately on the receipt of your first letter informing of your operations, this Department can not respond to your requisitions for money to purchase boats, nor with our limited number of officers can we provide any such number as are proposed for interior operations. Boatmen who navigate Western rivers must be selected, and, for the management of river boats, would doubtless be quite as serviceable as experienced seamen. The employment of men and their subsistence, together with the necessary engineers, pilots, firemen, etc., for the army movements, including the steamers, properly belong to the Army; and whatever you may do as regards them or either of them will be under the direction of the general in chief and by requisitions on and at the expense of the War Department. Should not your services or those of Mr. Pook be required by the War Department, you will be at liberty to return to this city.
I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,