be made known, that it may receive, as it will deserve, the execration of the civilized world.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

BRAXTON BRAGG,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF FLORIDA,
Fort Pickens, October 16, 1861.

Major General BRAXTON BRAGG,

Commanding Troops near Pensacola.

SIR: Your letter of the 10th instant was duly received, and I should deem it unworthy of an answer had you not thought proper to publish it ot the world and to countenance an editorial in a Pensacola paper every way worthy of it.

You have knowingly and willfully misconstrued my letter, for the evident purpose of having your Christian answer published, so as to make capital with your deluded followers. You have, in the very face of my declaration that I did not make war on women, the children, and the sick, declined and invitation that I never made, and which you knew I never made, to make those the objects of war. You knew that in calling to your notice that these buildings would necessarily be exposed to my fire I was influenced by a desire to save the sick, women, and children from danger, for previously to writing the letter to which yours is an answer I mentioned to your inspector-general, who was here with a flag, my intention to do so, and then, on the spot where the batteries and buildings could be plainly seen, I pointed out that I could not fire form certain batteries of mine at some of yours without endangering your hospital, which is in a direct line with them (and this is perfectly obvious to you own sight). You therefore knew that I must either omit to fire on particular batteries of yours or it must necessarily be exposed to my fire, and yet your Christian philanthropy is such that you declare your intention of keeping your sick, your women, and your children in this dangerous situation. And for what motive but in the hope of firing on me the sigma of firing on your hospital or killing women, children, and the sick? Your conduct shall not influence mine. I intend to prosecute this war as Christian man who has an account to give to his Maker. I will do my duty as I construe it, regardless of your calumny and that of the wretch who waits the Pensacola Observer. I have had three of your officers prisoners. They have notified you that they were treated as brother officers by mine. I have had some thirty of your privates prisoners. They have, with one solitary exception (and he said nothing), in writing to their friends, declared that they were well and kindly treated, and I have your sick in my hospital, and they have also reported that they receive the same attention as my own. I have released three of your medical officers without parole. I have collected and buried your dead with the same decency as my own. I have done much more. At your special request I have for two days employed my soldiers in disinterring and carting to the wharf your dead, so that their friends might have the satisfaction of knowing their bodies were cared for, and this has been done with the full knowledge of the entirely different treatment our prisoners and our dead have received and are receiving from your hands at Manassas and Richmond. And you knowing all this, have malignantly and falsely accused me of inviting you to make war on the sick, women, and children.

I will hold no terms of courtesy with a man who so far forgets what is due to an honorable profession, and who so well knows, yet so little