HEADQUARTERS FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Chattanooga, October 3, 1863.

Major-General ROSECRANS,
Commanding Department:

GENERAL: Your dispatch just received. I made mention of the time of receiving your dispatch on the battle-field to call attention to the fact, believing it to have been an error. I will make the correction in my forthcoming report, or in my fair copy.*

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEO. H. THOMAS,

Major-General U. S. Volunteers, Commanding.

CHATTANOOGA, TENN., January 11, 1864-9.30 p.m. [Received 10.50 a.m., 12th.]

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief:

The papers are publishing what purports to be my official report of the operations of the Fourteenth Army Corps at the battle of Chickamauga. It is not a full copy of the report which I sent in, to be forwarded to Washington, and, in addition, contains many inaccuracies.

GEO. H. THOMAS,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, January 12, 1864.

Major General GEORGE H. THOMAS,
Chattanooga:

GENERAL: Your telegram in regard to the newspapers publishing an incorrect version of your official report of the battle of Chickamauga is received, and I have telegraphed a brief reply. I deem it my duty to write you some additional facts in relation to the publication complained of.

Before the reports on that battle were received here the Secretary of War, from some suspicion or intimation that copies or extracts would be given clandestinely to the newspapers, directed Colonel Townsend to lock them up as soon as they arrived, and to keep the keys in his own possession till they were called for by Congress.

As no copies or extracts from your report could possibly have been obtained from these headquarters, you will form your own conclusions in regard to how and where they were obtained. It is stated that portions of these reports were telegraphed to the New York newspapers even before the originals were received at the Adjutant-General's Office here.

I will only add that I have never read or seen your report.

Truly, yours,

H. W. HALLECK.

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*See p. 253.

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17 R R-VOL XXX, PT I