toward the Confederacy, &c. On these subjects my information is too slight to enable me to express an opinion. As to the enemy having the initiative, we should force our dispositions upon him and compel him to subordinate his campaign to ours.

It is due the importance of this subject that I should respectfully but frankly express my opinion. No campaign dependent on the present system of bureaucracy will succeed. The rage for what is termed organization has proceeded so far that we are like a disproportionate garment-all ruffles and no shirt. The number of bureaus now existing in this department, and the army of employed attached to them, would do honor to St. Petersburg or Paris. Instead of making the general staff a mere adjunct to promote the efficiency of the little army in the field, the very reverse is the case. No captain nor colonel hears of one of his men falling in the influence of the Shreveport maelstrom but expects to lose him in the labyrinth of a bureau. The conscript laws are a snare and a delusion. Old regiments which have gained honor on many a well-fought field are reduced to skeletons, while new organizations are constantly filled up. Every courier from department headquarters brings a new batch of details to waste our slender ranks. Meanwhile the troops in the field are without pay, insufficiently supplied with food, and almost destitute of shoes and clothing. Requisitions for the most important articles upon which depend the fate of a campaign are lost in a mingled maze of red tape and circumlocution. These opinions are shared by every intelligent officer of this army, I will venture to assert, and require a speedy correction.

I repeat, my health precludes the hope that I can share in the Missouri campaign, and I hope the length at which I have gone into the subject will render the interview mentioned in your communication unnecessary. Inn conclusion, I have the honor to repeat the request previously made, that I may speedily be relieved from duty in this department.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. TAYLOR,

Major-General.

[Inclosure H.]

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT,

Shreveport, May 26, 1864

Major General R. TAYLOR,

Commanding District of West Louisiana:

GENERAL: In your letter of the 18th [28th] instant [ultimo], reporting operations on lower Red River you complain bitterly of the withdrawal of Walker's division, and say it has robbed your army of the just measure of its glory and the country of the most brilliant and complete success of the war. This most unjust complaint, though repeated, remained unnoticed. It was attributed to your ill-health, and that irritability of disposition which at Mansfield, on April 10, you regretted and begged me to bear with. I have again to-day received a communication from you, written in the same tone and spirit which is objectionable and improper. Walker's division was detached from your command, and with Churchill and Parsons moved against Steele in accordance with the plan of campaign expressed in my official communications and explained in my interview with you at Mansfield. You then distinctly expressed your approval

35 R R-VOL XXXIV, PT I