I therefore respectfully request that a court of inquiry be ordered to investigate the matter.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. R. GARLAND,

Colonel Sixth Texas Infantry.

[Indorsements.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT Number 2, Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded.

W. W. MACKALL,
Chief of Staff.

The exigencies of the service will not admit of assembling a court of inquiry at this time.

S. C.

KINGSTON, GA., January 10, 1864.

Colonel GEORGE WILLIAM BRENT,

Adjutant and Inspector-General, Army of Tenn, Dalton, Ga.:

SIR: Having failed after repeated efforts to have certain grievances rectified, I have the honor to request that they be laid before the commanding general, Army of Tennessee, for his consideration.

About the commencement of the present war I was assigned to duty in the Department of Texas, and for some months was engaged in mustering troops into the Confederate service. September 1, 1861, I received the appointment of colonel of infantry, and was assigned to command a certain district, including Victoria, Lavaca, Indianola, Pass Cavin, and other points on the coast, with instructions to raise and muster into service a force of artillery, cavalry, and infantry for the war. In pursuance of these instructions I raised, armed, equipped, organized, and disciplined a regiment of infantry, averaging 800 men, a squadron of cavalry, averaging 250, and a battalion of artillery, averaging about 200 men, without any assistance from either the State or Confederate Government, and at the same time these troops for the war were being raised there were recruiting officers all through the country, offering bounties and mustering into service twelve months' volunteers and all kinds of short levies, and at this time a division of this class of troops could have been raised much more readily than one infantry regiment for the war; so you can imagine the difficulties I had to contend against.

In May, 1862, I was ordered to proceed to Arkansas with the infantry regiment only. On arriving in Arkansas two additional Texas regiments, a squadron of Louisiana cavalry, and an Arkansas battery were organized into a brigade, under my command, by order of Lieutenant-General Holmes, and assigned to the defense of the Lower Arkansas and White Rivers. Two additional brigades [one Texas and one Arkansas] were soon after added to this force, all under my command to within a short time of the fall of Arkansas Post, when Brigadier-General Churchill assumed command.

On the 11th January, 1863, this force, under the above-named officer, was captured, horse, foot, dragoons, bag and baggage, and was not exchanged until May following. On arriving in Richmond, Va., the whole