yet another evidence of my earnestness in this cause. Though I have nothing to hope personally from my service with this army, though there are officers inferior not only in rank but in grade, who have commands perhaps twice as large as that to which I have been assigned, yet if it be your judgment that my services are more needed here than elsewhere, you may rely upon my most hearty official assistance and co-operation with the commanding general, and whatever may be the personal relations which his conduct may impose, he will continue to receive from me the official courtesies to which his position entitles him.

I am, very respectfully, Your Excellency's obedient servant,

S. B. BUCKNER,

Major-General.

[Sub-inclosure Numbers 2.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE, Missionary Ridge, October 20, 1863.

Major-General BUCKNER,
Comdg. Div. (through Major General Cheatham, Comdg. Corps):

GENERAL: In reply to your two communications of the 18th instant, dated headquarters Department of East Tennessee, the general commanding directs me to say that your Department of East Tennessee has been broken up by instructions from the President of the Confederate States, as well as by the actual occupation of that territory by the enemy.

The troops formerly of your command and now in Virginia constitute, by orders from the President, a part of the forces of Major General Samuel Jones.

The troops now with you form a division of this army in the corps of Major-General Cheatham, and to one of the brigades of your division Brigadier-General Preston is assigned.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEORGE WM. BRENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Sub-inclosure Numbers 3.]

HEADQUARTERS BUCKNER'S DIVISION, Near Chattanooga, October 23, 1863.

Colonel G. W. BRENT,
Asst. Adjt. General, Army Hdqrs., Missionary Ridge:

COLONEL: My communication of the 20th instant, asking that I might be furnished with a copy of the President's instructions breaking up the Department of East Tennessee, with an indorsement from your office stating that it was "a paper improper and unfit to go on the records of this (your) office, "is received.

A military service of seventeen years under General A. S. Johnston and other soldiers less distinguished only than himself, has convinced me that though the authority of a junior is more limited than that of his senior, his rights under the military laws of a free country are as distinctly defined as are the powers of his senior.

Amongst other rights to which as a junior I am clearly entitled is that of properly contesting a questionable hypothesis which affects the existence of my command and my official relations to the com-