me that your letter to the Honorable Mr. Miles,* on the wants of your army and the consequences thereof, was read to the Congress, and hence the inquiry instituted. Permit me to request that yo will return the telegram tome, which I inclosed to show you the form in which the matter came before me. Some excitement has been created by your letters. The quartermasters and the commissary generals both feel that they have been unjustly arraigned. As for myself, I can only say that I have endeavored to anticipate wants, and any failure which has occurred from imperfect knowledge mint have been best avoided by timely requisitions and estimates. I think you are unjust to yourself in pouting your failure to pursue the enemy to Washington to the account of short supplies of subsistence and transportation. Under the circumstances of our Army, and in the absence of the knowledge since acquired-if indeed, the statemans be true-it would have extremely hazard our to have done more that was performed. You will not fail to remember that, so far from knowing that the enemy was rounded, a large part of our forces was moved by you in the night of the 21stm to repel a supposed attack upon our right, and the next day's operations did not fully reveal wear has since been reported of the enemy's panic. Enough was done for glory, and the measure of duty was full. Let us rather on the untaught that their desires are unreasonable than, by driveling on possibilities, recently developed, give from and substance to the criticisms, always easy to those who judge after the event.

With sincere esteem, I am your friend,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

RICHMOND, VA., October 30, 1861.

General G. T. BEAUREGARD:

SIR: Yesterday my attention was called to various newspaper publications, purposing to have been sent from Manassas, and to be a synopsis of your report of the battle of July 21 last, and in which it is represented that you had been overruled by men in your plan for a battle with the enemy south of the Potomac, for the capture of Baltimore and Washington, and the liberation of Maryland. I inquired for your long expected report, and it has to-day been received by the Adjutant General on October 15, thought it is dated August 26, 1861. With much surprise I found that the newspaper statements were sustained by the text of your reports. I was surprised, became, if we did differ in opinion as to measures and purposes of contemplated campaigns, such fact could have no appropriate place in the report of a battle Further, became it seemed to be an attempt to exalt yourself at my expense, and especially became no such plan as that described was submitted to me. It is true that some time before it was ordered you expressed a desire for the junction of General Johnston's army with your own. The movement was postponed until the operations of the enemy rendered in necessary, and until it became thereby practicable to make it, with safety, to the valley of Virginia; hence I believe was secured the success by which it was attended. If you have retained a copy of the plan of campaign which, you say, was submitted to me, trough Colonel Chesnut, allow me to request that you will furnish me with a duplicate of it.

Very respectfully, yours, &c.,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

---------------

* Not found.

---------------