consideration of an urgent character exist for not removing these headquarters. On coming to this department you will remember that I had your authority for transferring the headquarters to Cincinnati, if I should on arrival deem it a more suitable point than Columbus; besides, my instructions required me to administer the command with a view to economy and efficiency. Under that clause, as soon as I ascertained the requirements of the department, I should have felt it my duty to remove to Cincinnati, and did so. This city is the proper place for headquarters, as the department is now organized and in the present condition of the surrounding departments. In the first place, it is emphatically the headquarters for receiving information from all necessary points, and has superior facilities for communicating it throughout the department. There is no time that I cannot step into the street and learn the condition of affairs from representatives from every post of the department; also of the Departments of Kentucky and Missouri, additional information not unnecessary to a proper and intelligent administration of my command. I am aware that this is not the military center; but with the disturbed state of public feeling in Kentucky, and the prowling bands of guerrillas all over the State, I have felt it necessary to establish myself on the Ohio River, and this, in my judgment, will be still more necessary when the river freezes over. It is not a week since the guerrillas spiked the guns along the lines of defense of this city on the south side of the river. It is for reasons of this character that I am here, and not at Indianapolis, which is still more central to a prompt and economical discharge of the duties devolving upon the commander of this department. It is a fact that the burden of my duties and the bulk of my command lie to the north and west of where I now am, and yet it is in contemplation, I hear, to remove me still farther from them. In the absence, then, of all public considerations for making the transfer, I can only conclude that I am to be made use of in my official character to subserve some private interests. Some railroad, some proprietor of a public house and other buildings are to be propitiated at the expense of the public good. Of course you have not been informed of the influences at work to make these changes or you would not sanction them. I do assure you that it will be economy on the part of the Government, and that, too, before the winter expires, to buy all the buildings I shall require for self and staff and burn them down, sooner than have headquarters removed outside the posts and camps of the department. You know as well as I do that this department is full of refugees and other desperate characters willing to make use of existing opportunities to burn and plunder at points the most necessary for us, and when so much of it is being done by our troops in the Confederacy, we cannot expect to escape unscathed. I confess that I have many apprehensions on this subject. But what appears very marvelous to me in this matter is, that any one or number of individuals should be permitted to go covertly to work to make a change in this department of vital consequence to the public good and I not conferred with or informed of it. If they were honest in their motives they would have invited my opinions, and have been willing to abide the result of a comparison. This is admitting that they have a right to meddle with the affairs of the department, a right I never have and never will recognize. The Governor of this State or any citizen of Columbus would consider it presumption in me to prescribe the roof they should sleep under or what they should eat, drink, or wear, and yet all this could be done with equal propriety. So far as I cam concerned it is