[Inclosure.]

HEADQUARTERS McCOWN'S DIVISION,
Shelbyville, Tenn. April 14, 1863.

General BRAXTON BRAGG, Commanding Army of Tennessee:

GENERAL: Your communication of 13th instant, inclosing a copy of your order to General Polk, dated Headquarters Department Numbers 2, Harrodsburg, October 7, 1862, 5.40 p.m. has just been received. In reply I have to state that I was not present at either of the councils alluded to in your communication, and was not aware until informed of the fact by your letter that a council or meeting of general officers was held by General Polk on the morning of October 8, 1862, nor that he had received orders from you to attack the enemy early that morning. When the council was held at Bardstown I was on outpost some 9 miles from Burdstown, on the Louisville road. In short, the only council called by General Polk to which I was ever summoned or ever attended was held in Columbus, Ky., in November or December, 1861. I have been present at one or two other assemblages of officers called by him, but they were not of the nature of advisory councils nor was I called upon to express an opinion.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. P. STEWART,

Brigadier-General, C. S. Army.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
Mobile, Ala., April 26, 1863.

General BRAXTON BRAGG,

Commanding Army of Tennessee, Tullahoma, Tenn.:

GENERAL: Your letter of the 13th instant has been received. You ask me, if I deem it consistent with my sense of duty, to inform you how far I may have sustained Lieutenant-General Polk in his acknowledged disobedience of orders in his conduct at Bardstown and Perryville, Ky., as based upon the opinions of certain councils assembled by his orders at those points. At the first council alluded to in your note I was not present, but was with you at Lexington and Frankfort. My views of that portion of the campaign you can probably recall, as in interviews at each of those cities I gave my opinion, when sought by you with the candor I have ever used toward my superiors. I was present at the consultation of general officers at Perryville, and at the request of Lieutenant-General Polk, who was my commander, gave my views of what, in my opinion, was the proper course to be adopted under the circumstances in which that portion of the army found itself at the time, without obtruding my opinion upon him more than I had done at other times upon yourself. I expressed it when called upon to do so with the same sincerity I have ever shown toward you.

With a desire to act in accordance with my duty and with proper deference to yourself I have consider for several days the course I should pursue in replying to your letter. While I have never sought responsibility I have certainly never shrunk from any which appropriately belonged to me, and I desire to avoid none which may now attach to any opinions held or expressed by me on the occasion to which you direct my attention; but I cannot, consistently with my sense of

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