own acts or intentions, and it gives me sincere pleasure at all times to acknowledge any assistance I may receive from others either in counsel or action. If I had determined to abandon Nashville it would have been upon my best judgment, and I should cheerfully have submitted to a verdict on the wisdom of my course. I assert that I never intimated to Governor Johnson an intention or wish to leave Nashville without a garrison; that there was no discussion between us pro and con on the subject, and that the determination to hold the place was my own, uninfluenced by him in any manner. I had not that confidence in his judgment or that distrust of my own which would have induced me to seek his counsel. On account of his official position I called on him first to inform him what I meant to do, and last to tell him what garrison I had concluded to leave. On both occasions, as far as my plans were concerned, I was the speaker and he the listener. My officers were far more likely to know my views than he, and they have stated that I said always that the political importance of the occupation far outweighed any purely military bearing of the question, and that I should hold the city.*

D. C. BUELL,

Major-General.

BURNET HOUSE, May 5, 1863.

[Inclosure No. 5.]

BALTIMORE, MD., April 10, 1864.

General LORENZO THOMAS,

Adjutant-General, U. S. Army:

SIR: I have heard that the Secretary of War intends to publish in general orders the result of the investigation of my military operations in Kentucky and Tennessee during the summer of 1862 by the Military Commission organized by Major-General Halleck. Supposing that the pressure of official business may thus far have prevented the Secretary from making a careful examination of the record, which is very voluminous, and believing that such an examination will essentially modify the effect of the manner in which the Commission has stated facts and refute many of its opinions, my object is to ask attention to some of the features of the report and to request that its publication may be accompanied by the official decision of the Department.

The report premises by saying that "very early in its sessions the Commission resolved to direct its investigations to the following points," and it specifies six "points." It would appear from this as though the

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*The documents appended to the foregoing statement appear in this series as follows:

Major-General Buell's report of the battle of Shiloh, Vol. X, Part I, p.291.

Major-General Buell's report of the battle of Perryville, Vol. XVI, Part I, p. 1022.

General Orders, Department of the Ohio:

No. 23, December 27, 1861, Vol. VII, p.15.

No. 4a, January 20, 1862, Vol. VII, p.24.

No. 4b, January 23, 1862, Vol. VII, p.78.

No. 13a, February 26, 1862, Vol. VII, p.669.

General Orders, Army of the Ohio:

No. 6, April 8, 1862, Vol. X, Part I, p.297.

No. 29a, July 11, 1862, Vol. XVI, Part I, p.65.

No. 47b, October 12, 1862, Vol. XVI, Part I, p.1032.

No. 50, October 30, 1862, Vol. XVI, Part II, p.654.

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