General Gordon Granger as to the possibility or the practicability of invading Eastern Tennessee from Kentucky by the way of Cumberland Gap General Buell opened the way to this inquiry, and that I have an entire right to show that it was practicable and could have been done but for the instructions that retarded General Morgan.

General BUELL. The judge-advocate in stating the proposition with reference to introducing rebutting evidence may be accurate in so far as it has reference to civil courts, but the rule of proceeding is altogether different before military tribunals. My examination of General Granger upon the practicability of invading Eastern Tennessee by way of Cumberland Gap had reference to a different time and different circumstances altogether. The time to which the investigation which the judge-advocate proposes to enter upon applies is the time when General Morgan was in possession of Cumberland Gap with a small force. The time to which my inquiry applies was after the battle of Perryville, and had reference to the movement of a large army into East Tennessee. The time and the circumstances are all different.

The judge-advocate reads from General Gordon Granger's examination:

CINCINNATI, February 17, 1863.

By General BUELL:

Question. Have you had occasion in your official position to study the problem of throwing a force into East Tennessee form Central Kentucky?

Yes, sir; it is a matter to which I have given a good deal of study and reflection, and abandoned it as impracticable.

Question. In the course of your investigations what have you learned to be the character of the country and its agricultural resources between Somerset and East Tennessee directly across the mountains?

The character of the country is altogether mountainous.

General BUELL. The testimony which the judge-advocate proposes to introduce now has reference to the movements of the forces which were actually in East Tennessee. My examination of General Granger was in reference to the movement of a force across the mountains to Central Kentucky. There is not the slightest connection between them. In my question to General Granger there is nothing which refers to the force that was at Cumberland Gap under General Morgan. The examination had reference to the movements of the Army of the Ohio into East Tennessee after the battle of Perryville; a thing which I have heard had been supposed by some persons to have been possible.

The PRESIDENT. What is the question upon which the judge-advocate proposes to introduce the witness?

The JUDGE-ADVOCATE. I propose to examine Colonel De Courcy, who was with General Morgan, upon the possibility of having seized and held East Tennessee at the time General Morgan was in possession of Cumberland Gap and to ascertain the reasons why it was not done.

The PRESIDENT. You propose to show by this witness that it was practicable?

The JUDGE-ADVOCATE. Yes, sir. It was eminently practicable; it was a thing that could have been done, General Granger to the contrary notwithstanding.

General BUELL. General Granger did not answer at all with reference to what General Morgan might have done. General Granger's answer has no reference to that case at all.

General DANA. I should like to place on record my reasons for voting against the introduction of this witness: First, that it is in no form to