battle can be prevented only by severe and summary punishment inflicted on the spot.

In this and many other important particulars our military laws require revision and amendment. They were mostly enacted for a small army and for times of peace, and are unsuited to the government of the army we now have and the war in which we are now engaged.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

[Exhibit Numbers 5.]

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, October 27, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK, General-in-Chief:

GENERAL: It has been publicly stated that the army under General McClellan has been unable to move during the fine weather of this fall for want of shoes, clothing, and other supplies. You will please report to this Department upon the following points:

1st. To whom and in what manner the requisitions for supplies to the army under General McClellan have been made since you assumed command as General-in-Chief, and whether any requisition for supplies of any kind has since that time been made upon the Secretary of War or communication had with him except through you.

2d. If you, as General-in-Chief, have taken pains to ascertain the condition of the army in respect to supplies of shoes, clothing, arms, and others necessaries, and whether there has been any neglect or delay by any Department of bureau in filing the requisitions for supplies, and what has been and is the condition of that army as compared with other armies in respect to supplies.

3d. At what date after the battle of Antietam the orders to advance against the enemy were given to General McClellan, and how often have they been repeated.

4th. Whether, in your opinion, there has been any want in the army under General McClellan, of shoes, clothing, arms, or other equipments or supplies that ought to have prevented its advance against the enemy when the order was given.

5th. How long was it after the orders to advance were given to General McClellan before he informed you that any shoes or clothing were wanted in his army, and what are his means of promptly communicating the wants of the army to you or to the proper bureaus of the War Department?

Yours, truly,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON, October 28, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: In reply to the several interrogatories contained in your letter of yesterday, I have to report:

1st. That requisitions for supplies to the army under General McClellan are made by his staff officers on the chiefs of bureaus here -that is, for quartermaster supplies, by his chief quartermaster on the Quartermaster-General; for commissary supplies, by his chief commissary on the Commissary-General, &c., No such requisitions have been, to my