WASHINGTON, December 29, 1860.
LARZ ANDERSON, Esq., Cincinnati:
SIR: General Scott has been hoping for two or three days to find himself well enough to answer your letter, but is too much prostrated by diarrhea. He has done everything in his power to support your brother in his command, repeating, with what effect remains to be seen, within the last twenty-four hours, an urgent recommendation, long since made, to the President to re-enforce the major.
The War Department has kept secret from the General the instructions sent to the major, but the General, in common with the whole Army, has admired and vindicated as a defensive measure the masterly transfer of the garrison from Fort Moultrie to the position of Fort Sumter.
G. W. LAY.