means, and I think that the threat of it might suppress the disposition on the part or the inhabitants.

Question. Do you really think that the inhabitants have acted very powerfully in interrupting the communications between here and Louisville in destroying the road as a means of transportation?

I do not think that the inhabitants, announcing themselves as such, have done much harm, but that they have acted clandestinely and in concert with the organized enemy. That question, of course, is one of opinion, depending on such rumors or information as we received from time to time in regard to the probable alliance between the inhabitants and the enemy, and the opinion is to be taken with much allowance.

Question. Is not the presence of large bodies of cavalry under Forrest, Morgan, and other rebel generals, operating upon the line of communication of the army during the past summer, as much a matter of fact as the presence of Kirby Smith's army in Kentucky?

I have no doubt that these forces were regularly operating against the communications of the army. I have no doubt, not only from the facts of their actual interruption, but also from the information brought by spies and others who obtained it, that such were their plans.

Question. There is no question of the fact, I suppose, that a considerable force of our troops was captured by a large body of the enemy's cavalry at Murfreesborough in July last, and does not that establish the fact of the presence of such large bodies in the country?

I was not in Nashville at the time of the battle of Murfreesborough but immediately subsequent, and became acquainted with the fact of a large number of persons having been taken in the battle and of the successful attack of the enemy at Murfreesborough. The business of my office brought that information constantly before me.

General NEGLEY (a witness for the defendant), being duly sworn, testified as follows:

By General BUELL:

Question. State, if you please, general, your name and position in the service of the United States.

James S. Negley, brigadier-general in the United States service.

Question. Give, if you please, a concise statement of your services during the past summer and up to the time of the return of the army to this place recently. State what the enemy's operations were in your vicinity and what measures were adopted to counteract them.

I was in command of the post at Columbia from the 1st of July. My command occupied the railroad from Franklin to the Tennessee River, on the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad. The enemy were quite numerous throughout the country. They were raising guerrilla parties in the vicinity of all the interior towns. Biffle was raising a regiment in the vicinity of Waynesborough, west of Columbia; Napier was raising another regiment in the vicinity of Charlotte and Centreville, nearly west of Columbia; and Major Hawkins was raising a regiment in the vicinity of Hillsborough, over toward Chapel Hill. There was a battalion raising between Columbia and Pulaski, in the neighborhood of Culleoka, a point on the railroad. There was a battalion, afterward a regiment, of guerrillas organizing on the edge of Atlanta, commanded by John T. Morgan. This force numbered in all between 2,500 and 3,000 men. Forrest at the same time was operating east of the line of railroad between Nashville and Tullahoma. He was operating between Manchester and extending toward Carthage and Sparta. The rapidity with which these guerrillas could organize at any one given point required a great deal of vigilance and watchfulness, for the troops would move from point to point in order to cut off the line of communication to the south. Scarcely a day would pass in which they did not commit some depredations on the road, stopping trains and pulling up the rails. They were very annoying in the vicinity of Columbia, their forces generally outnumbering the forces at the post. They threw the cars off the track three times and interrupted the travel for several days at different periods. At the time of the withdrawal of the troops they succeeded

17 R R-VOL XVI