I do not know that I was ever informed by any official functionary, but my under standing was that the movements were made in obedience to an order from General Halleck; but I never understood what was the specific object set forth in the order directing the movement, nor have I any knowledge as to whether discretion was allowed to General Buell in the execution of the order.

Commission adjourned to meet December 18, or 10 o'clock a. m.

NASHVILLE, Thursday Morning, December 18, 1862.

The Commission met pursuant to adjournment. All the members present; also the judge-advocate and General Buell.

General T. J. WOOD'S examination continued.

Recross-examination continued.

Recross-examination by General BUELL:

Question. Do you know any reason why the army could not have advanced on Chattanooga as soon as it arrived in North Alabama?

I have already explained that my division of the Army of the Ohio was engaged for nearly a month after it came into North Alabama in repairing the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. After the completion of this work, and when my division was encamped within one day's march of Huntsville and a considerable there was a considerable want of supplies, as I understood. There was a serious break in the railroad from Nashville by the way of Columbia, &c., which had to be repaired before it could be depended upon for getting supplies. I cannot now remember whether the road from Nashville to Stevenson was in working order throughout all its parts or not at this time. This was about July 7, 1862.

On 13th July, 1862, according to my best recollection, the garrison at Murfreesborough was captured and the road in several places in that vicinity broken up and bridges destroyed; so I was informed and so believed. It was a matter of common notoriety from that time, or for a month or more, up to the time we began our march out of Tennessee. Various efforts were made by bodies of the enemy to destroy our communications on this road, and it required great watchfulness and care to prevent it. I think, if I am not mistaken, that there were occasional interruptions of communications on the road at the period referred to, but they were of no great duration, according to my present recollection. I can state that from the time the garrison at Murfreesborough was captured up to the time the army commenced to concentrate at Nashville my own division was never supplied with subsistence further ahead than from five to seven days, and it was during this period, while the communications were so very much interrupted, that I was compelled at Decherd to resort to the means described in a previous answer to subsist my division. Whether the causes I have described were the real reasons for not advancing on Chattanooga I cannot say, as I was not in command of the army and not in very close communication with the commander; but they would seem to constitute difficulties in the way, and may have been reasons why no advance was made in that direction.

Question. Of what importance is Chattanooga as a military position and as a strategic point?

It is somewhat difficult to say of what strategic importance Chattanooga alone is, but I should think that a military force occupying Chattanooga, and with sufficient strength to maintain itself there, and also with its military connections to keep its communications open to the rear, would be able to command what is called the East Tennessee Railroad and some of the rail communications farther south. The simple occupation, if per se, in a strategic point of view, and without the ability to command the country for a certain distance west and east and south and east, would probably not be of any great advantage; but as far as I have ever thought of the propriety of occupying Chattanooga, it would have been with the hope at least that the Government might have been able to put there a force that would have been able to extend its operations sufficiently far into East Tennessee, and, if not to occupy the country, to destroy the rail communications there.

Question. As a position in itself is it strong or weak?

I have never been at Chattanooga myself, and cannot give an opinion of its strength.

Question. Do or do not the railroads converging upon it from the east and south make it an exposed point for our troops?

I should say so, unquestionably.