EXHIBIT K.

Statement of Lieut. Charles S. Medary, Third U. S. Artillery, Aide-de-Camp, relative to his interview with Maj. Gen. H. G. Wright, at Cincinnati, Ohio, September 18, 1862.

On the 10th of September, 1862, I left Cumberland Gap as bearer of a dispatch dated September 9, 1862, from General Morgan to Major-General Wright, commanding the Department of the Ohio.

Colonel De Courcy, with his brigade of four regiments, had been sent by General Morgan with a large wagon train to collect supplies of bacon and flour at Manchester. On the night of the 11th I reached that place, and was informed by Colonel De Courcy that General Morgan had been misinformed as to the provisions which could be there obtained; that very little bacon could be had, and that his brigade consumed three-quarters of all the flour that could be ground at the mill, and that he had collected all that could be obtained.

To guard against the loss of the dispatch in the event of my being captured I made an abstract of General Morgan's dispatch, and then delivered the dispatch to a Union citizen, who promised to send it to General Wright, which was done, and the dispatch safely reached him two or three days after my arrival.

I reached Cincinnati on the evening of the 17th of September, and on the day following I had an interview with General Wright. I delivered to him a copy of my abstract of General Morgan's report, and informed him that I had been instructed to communicate certain facts to him not contained in the dispatch, which were substantially as follows:

That there was an effective force of between 7,000 and 8,000 men at the Gap; that Garrard had been sent with a force to join General Nelson at Lexington; that there were in all thirty guns, among which were four 30 and six 20 pounders [Parrotts], and that there was a large supply of ammunition; that the troops at the Gap had been on half rations for three weeks and had been without flour or bread for a week prior to the date of the dispatch; that General Morgan had sent De Courcy's brigade to Manchester, where he hoped to obtain considerable supplies of flour and bacon, upon which he depended; that if he succeeded in obtaining those supplies General Morgan thought he might hold out sixty days.

I then remarked to General Wright that, in my own opinion, after learning that Colonel De Courcy had failed to obtain the anticipated supplies, I did not think that General Morgan could hold out over twenty or thirty days from the time I left the Gap even if the soldiers used the mules as food. And I should here state that when General Morgan spoke of holding out sixty days he said that he would kill the mules for food if necessary; but I do not recollect whether I mentioned that fact to General Wright or not.

Having finished the foregoing verbal statement, General Wright requested me to make a memorandum of the facts I had stated. I made a brief memorandum, in which I also gave the position and strength of Kirby Smith, Stevenson, and Humphrey Marshall, but it was not so full as the verbal statement.

CHARLES S. MEDARY,

Lieutenant, Third U. S. Artillery, Aide-de-Camp.