us further doubt upon the subject. In his telegram from Louisville to General Halleck, shortly before moving out against the enemy, he states their force to be 60,000. This estimate is subsequently asserted by witnesses both on the part of the Government and the defense. General Buel has proven that of this Kirby Smith's, Stevenson's, and Marshall's forces make 30,000 leaving to Bragg the 30,000 with which he drove the Army of Ohio from North Alabama to Louisville.

The Government considers this a subject of careful investigation on the part of the Commission. That an army of veterans, numbering, with the divisions added from General Grant, some 65,000-that, as claimed by the defense, no defeat could dishearten and no marches in retreat could demoralize-that such an army should fall back through shameful disasters, with long fatiguing marches and great privation, bearing every mark o defeat, half its numbers, makes a new page in our history of shame, and calls for explanation or severest punishment.

SPARTA.

Bragg seems from evidence to have anticipated that his crossing the Tennessee River would be disputed. Upon what his anticipation was based is difficult to determine. Long after his design, if not his plan, of invasion had been developed the Army of the Ohio was stationed along an extended line, devoted to guarding and repairing railways, in a manner that made it impossible to concentrate for the purpose of opposing his crossing. When, however, this crossing was effected the ablest military minds in the army, other than its commander, suggested a concentration where the rebels could be met as they passed from the Sequatchie Valley to the plains of Middle Tennessee.

Sparta of McMinnville is suggested, but especially Sparta, where they could have been fought with every prospect of success. That Bragg must pass by Sparta was reasonable to suppose at the time, and with the light before the Commission a necessity. Had he retained Chattanooga as his base he could not have passed to the right or the left of our army in position without having his line of communication cut and his army turned upon a line of country where General Buell has been at some paints to prove an army could not subsist. If, on the other had, he burdened himself with little transportation and only carried subsistence for eight or ten days, thereby cutting loose from his base, which proved to be the fact, his road through the Sequatchie Valley out by Sparta, and on the almost direct line to Bardstown, along which route his supplies had provided. The position at Sparta is, we are assured, naturally advantages that 15,000 might have been intrusted to its defense against the 30,000 of the enemy; but while all seems doubtful on the part of our army, with hesitation in its movements and uncertainty in its future, Bragg acts as if his way were assured to him and success the certain result of his efforts. History of military campaigns affords no parallel to this of an army throwing aside its transportation, paying no regard to its supplies, but cutting loose from its base, marching 200 miles in the face of and really victorious over an army double its size.

SUBSISTENCE.

Why the Army of the Ohio was not massed at Sparta was not massed at Sparta, or indeed at any other point in Tennessee, for the purpose of disputing the further progress of this confident enemy was owing, the defense assures us, to