Question. What did you estimate his number at?

From 45,000 to 60,000 men.

Question. Was not your information of such a character that you could come to a nearer estimate than these two extremes?

It was not. The number of regiments was stated at one hundred and twenty; their average strength I could not exactly ascertain, but I reckoned it at 400 to 500.

Question. If the principal officers of the Army of the Ohio, with fair means to make their estimate, fixed that army at 35,000 to 40,000 is your information of such a character that you could contradict them?

General BUELL. I object to the question in its present shape. The principal officers of the Army of the Ohio have not estimated the strength of the rebel army at 35,000 to 40,000.

The JUDGE-ADVOCATE. I have not said that the principal officers of the Army of the Ohio had done so. I put a supposable case for the purpose of ascertaining the reliability of the witness' estimate. It is not allowable to tell the witness what previous witnesses have stated. I did not do it. General Buell has no right to do it.

General BUELL. I withdraw my objection.

The JUDGE-ADVOCATE. The mischief is done; it has taken my supposable case out of my hands. I move that the court adjourn.

Commission adjourned to meet Monday, February 2, 1863.

CINCINNATI, February 2, 1863.

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

General W. S. SMITH'S testimony continued, as follows:

General BUELL. I desire, Mr. President, to say, with reference to the objection I made on Saturday, that I desire now to repeat the objection and insist upon it. The question (of the judge-advocate) does not positively assert that a certain statement has made in the testimony before the Commission, but it implies as much. Whatever may have been the design of the question, the tendency of it is to mislead the witness, and in a certain way to intimidate him also, showing his opinion in contrast to that of officers of higher rank than himself, and whose opportunities for obtaining the information referred to he might naturally suppose to be better than his own. The question does virtually assume or assert that the evidence upon which it is founded has been established before this Commission in this investigation. I have no doubt that the rules of evidence would exclude the question, and that perhaps should be the only ground upon which I should urge my objection, but I might also say that if by a strict interpretation of the rules of evidence the question should be permitted to slip through, yet I see no reason why that sort of investigation should be pursued before a body of army officers and in the examination of an army officer.

The JUDGE-ADVOCATE. That the question was asked for the purpose of putting General Smith upon his guard is certainly a fact; whether you would call intimidating or not is merely a choice of terms. It is an important question, one of the most important in this investigation, and I was anxious that General Smith should give us as clearly as he could the foundation upon which he fixed the number of that army at the time it crossed the Tennessee River, and that he should also state to us how far that was a conviction in his mind. For that purpose I put a supposable case, that could not, by any manner of means, be con