HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF EAST TENNESSEE,
Abingdon, May 9, 1864.

General W. E. JONES,

Glade Spring:

Colonel Humes is here with 200 men. Reports no enemy to be found on the front toward Knoxville. I have ordered a picket to be established at Worley's and another on the Ready Creek road. There is a picket of home guards at Kingsport and a picket from Vaughn below Bristol, with instructions to observe the approaches to that point. Pridemore, I suppose, is still acting under your orders. Colonel Humes will leave for Saltville in a few minutes. The stores are not all yet removed from Bristol.

J. L. SANDFORD,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

MONTGOMERY, May 9, 1864.

Lieutenant-General POLK:

In the interview granted me at Meridian in January last you did me and the brigade which I had been commanding great injustice in saying that the mutiny which was threatened at Pollard was the result of a want of discipline, and in contradicting the assertion which I made that the Peace Society, as it was called, originated in General Bragg's army. * If I believed you capable of doing me or my brigade any intentional injustice then I would not trouble myself to obtain or seek for your good opinion. It is the good feeling and high opinion which I have for you that prompts the feeble and hurried effort to place myself right in leaving, against my will, your department, where I had hoped to remain during the war, and where I felt more secure from the persecutions of General Bragg than anywhere else, for you know him better than any general in our army. As to discipline I beg leave to state first that I commanded the first regiment of cavalry raised in Alabama, known as the First Alabama Cavalry. I raised, organized, drilled, and equipped, and fought this regiment for the first twelve months of its existence, and held the front of the western army. In North Alabama I did my first service, and I so controlled my men that not one complaint was ever made against any one of my officers or men during the time I was in command. When ordered from North Alabama Judge John E. Moore, Mr. Patton, then President of the Senate of Alabama; The Huntsville Confederate, edited by a brother of Senator Clay; Richard W. Walker, our present Senator and other prominent citizens, at the request of the people of North Alabama, petitioned for me to be sent back, and have continued to petition until the present time.

The military court at Mobile assert that I arrested more officers and men in my brigade and forwarded to Mobile for trial (from Pollard) than any brigadier in your department. I averaged about sixty prisoners in my guard house for several months before I was ordered from Pollard. Inclosed I see court at Mobile on the subject. General Maury told me in Mobile, in November last, that he arrested in East Tennessee officers, as well as privates, for belonging to this same Peace Society, before he was assigned to duty at Mobile. Governor Watts says that the same society existed in the Army of Tennessee long before it was heard of at Pollard. Information of the fact was forwarded to Richmond whilst he was in the Cabinet,

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*See Walter to Bragg, May 8, 1864, Fourth Series.

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