quest, had ordered the First Wisconsin Cavalry back to Missouri. I infer from your remark "I ordered it back to Missouri on my return to this command" that General Steele's order had not been executed at the time you refer to. That you, after your command had been extended over Missouri, "ordered it back to Missouri," I respectfully submit only makes your failure to do so before the more worthy of notice.

I hope,general, you will not misunderstand me as referring to these matters in my official report for the purpose of criticizing your official acts, which it would manifestly be improper for me to do. I have stated such facts as formed an essential part of the military history of the district under my command. If these facts embrace acts of yours which seem to require explanation, it is perfectly proper that this explanation should be made by you in your official report. It would be impracticable as well as improper for me to make it.

The above remarks are also applicable to the subject of the movement of General Steele's command, which forms the greater part of the subject of your dispatch of the 22nd.

I would not have deemed it necessary to allude to that movement at all in my report but for the fact that a member of your staff caused to be inserted in one of the Saint Louis papers an editorial article evidently intended, and so understood by my friends, to throw upon me the responsibility as "unfortunate," and thus in the public mind relieve you at my expense of whatever blame might attach to it. I called your attention to the errors contained in the published article and to the injustice done me, and asked to have it corrected. I understood you to say that it should be done, but it was not. My official relations to you forbade my answering the article in the public papers, and I am still without redress before the public. Certainly I could not do less than place myself right before the War Department.

In my report I said no more than was necessary to show that the movement made was not what I had recommended, and I inclosed the only papers that had any material bearing on that question, viz, my letter to General Steele and my dispatch to yourself. It was not my province to either justify or condemn a movement made by your orders. If my views, expressed at or before the time the orders were given or the facts or rumors furnished by me, were of any weight in deciding you to give them, it is certainly proper for you to make use of them to justify your acts. It would be manifestly out of place for me to refer to them in any such connection.

The fact is simply that the movement made by General Steele was neither one of the three which I suggested, but was essentially different from either of them. My statement of the condition of affairs and of the necessity of co-operation from General Steele's force, which subsequent events have shown to have been unusually accurate, may or may not have justified the course you pursued; whether or no is foreign to the proper subject of my report.

I had been repeatedly informed by General Halleck that the force at Helena had been re-enforced and would move into the interior of Arkansas without delay. Finding that the movement was not made, I from time to time repeated my request, not knowing that any good reason existed why it should not be done.

All my communications on the subject show that that move was what I most desired. About the middle of September the papers stated that a part of Steele's force had been sent to Kentucky. I immediately