stances connected with the case, such as would enable the Court to form and give an opinion as to whether I and my command deserved a certain censure pronounced in certain official documents, Special Field Orders, No. 23, orders an investigation of circumstances attending all movements of troops ordered to the support of Geary, and an opinion as to whether blame attaches to myself or Colonel Hecker, irrespective of the censure contained in General Hooker's report and letter.

Although I have no reason to shrink from any such investigation, yet I would respectfully observe that I may be able to prove by witnesses now present and within reach that the circumstances of the case were such that the strictures contained in General Hooker's report and letter were not deserved by the conduct of myself and my command on that occasion, while it would require a number of witnesses now absent, some of whom will be out of reach for a long time and one of whom has meanwhile left the service, to enable the Court to investigate the circumstances attending all movements of troops ordered to the support of Geary. The investigation, as asked for in my application, therefore, might soon enable the Court to form an opinion on the point specified by me, while the investigation as ordered by Special Field Orders, No. 23, might indefinitely prolong the proceedings of the Court, and perhaps, other circumstances intervening, lead to no definite result at all.

I would also respectfully call the attention of the Court to the circumstance that the order to "give an opinion as to whether blame should attach to Major-General Schurz or Colonel Hecker, " entirely ignores the fact that blame was already attached to Major-General Schurz or Colonel Hecker in official documents, and that it was the blame thus officially pronounced for the investigation of the justice of which I prayed. I asked for a court of inquiry for the purpose of investigating not whether some charges may be found against me and my command, but whether the charges already brought against me and my command are founded or not. I deem it essential that the specified grounds upon which I asked for a court of inquiry be taken official cognizance of in the instructions given to the Court.

I arrived at the inevitable conclusion that if there is a discrepancy between the objects of the investigation, as stated in the order convening and instructing the Court, and the object of the investigation as stated and specified in the application of the accused, the Court of Inquiry so ordered and instructed is not the court of inquiry asked for by the accused, but another, not asked for by the accused, and can, therefore, with its present instructions, not stand under the Ninety-second Article of War.

I would, therefore, most respectfully pray the Court to apply to Major-General Thomas, commanding Department of the Cumberland, for re-instruction concerning the objects of the investigation, in conformity with the specified issue stated in my application for a court of inquiry.

C. SCHURZ,

Major-General.

[NOTE IN PENCIL:
File the remonstrance; destroy the order.

W.