the Army has been doomed to inactivity, to avoid the exasperation the enemy.

That I have not heeded "the unwise babbling of some nor the deliberate malice of many," is to be found in the fact that they were never noticed by me until a respectable foundation appeared for them. My confidence and friendship for General Beauregard have been unmistakably manifested, and none can regret more than myself the error he has committed in bringing extraneous matter into his report of a battle, without any perceivable notice for so doing which is consistent with the good opinion I entertained of him. To a request for a duplicate of the plan of battle and campaign, while he had reported was submitted to me through you, he replies by assuring me that the plan, as stated in his report, is the one you were sent to submit-that he has a written statement of the result of your result of your conference with me, which has been sent to New Orleans, and of which he promises to furnish a copy.

Your latter shows that you bore merely a message from General Beauregard, and his official announcement of a plan of operations submitted but not a accepted is poorly sustained by reference to a conversation with me by a third person, even thought it was reduced to writing after having been orally communicated to him. When the newspapers published a synopsis of General Beauregard's report, in which reference is made to the plan said to have been submitted to me by him, I could not believe he was responsible for the statement until I was his report.

I accept your friendly advice in the spirit which suggests it, and can assure you that our cause is to me so far above any personal considerations, that I cam find no difficulty in fully co-operating with any one who can and will promote success.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

RICHMOND, November 12, 1861.

General G. T. BEAUREGARD,

Commanding District of Potomac, Centreville, Va.:

GENERAL: I have received your letter of the 8th instant,* and in compliance with your request have caused to be affixed to your reported of the battle of Manassas the date of your letter of the 14th October, which accompanied it, although this was unnecessary, inasmuch as the letter had already been filed with the report itself.

In respect to the strategic portion of the report as an obstante to its publication, I would remark that it is a rule of the Department to furnish copies of reports of battle only to Congress, by whose authority alone they are printed. Under this rule they are withheld from publication by the Department in the daily papers. Some few of these reports of battle have found their way into the papers, but the newspapers obtained their copies before the reports reached this office.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. COOPER,

Adjt. and Insp. General

P. S.-I am unable to account for the irregularity of the mails between this city and Centreville, and this reminds me that I duly received your note of the 23rd October, in which you asked for information in respect to aides-de-camp and other matters, and to which I promptly replied as fully as I had the means of doing, offering at the same time to supply

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* Page 505.

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