for by me when the after-thought of Stevens, after his failure, first gave him the effrontery to make such pretenses to me) states explicitly that, if these officers were not in favor of the movement, "none of them said as much as this." It has never been pretended by me that they were in favor of it, though I did not have any reason to suspect they were not, is what I distinctly assert.

Of the three questions put by General Wright to General Stevens, and ot in response to any call for his opinion, one was, "Has your battery had any effect upon the fort?" A second, "Do you expect it to have any effect? " To both of which General Stevens replied briefly in the negative; replies that were, of course, favorable to my early attack. And I deny explicitly that General Wright gave any warning whatever as to what my orders were, or as to its being against the orders to me, while I am able to say that General Stevens (who had read General Hunter's order to me) did say tome after the affair that it was a movement that it was my right and perfectly competent for me to order.

I gave those orders, therefore, no one objecting, and General Stevens making but few, if any, of the speeches he has now written out in his letter. He did purpose the full daylight or the afternoon, and unloaded muskets, both which I forbade, but both which he virtually carried out. I told him his men "would be cut ot pieces" if he assaulted the fort in upon the fort before good aiming light," and with loaded muskets, but not capped, for a night attack; that his attack must not be later than 4 a. m. at furthest. And our supporting column, resting at about the same distance from the fort, 1 to 1 /4 miles distant, was to move as soon as we heard his fire (expected to be that of the pickets), or as soon as a staff officer reached us from General Stevens, as he proposed.

The first firing we heard, which proved to be the guns of the fort upon Stevens' column, was fully as lave as 5 o'clock and after sunrise, on which we moved at once, his messenger reaching us some ten minutes after. It was certainly after 5 o'clock, and General Stevens' watch, if he looked at it, proved that to him for I had been careful the night previous to have our watches set together; and, more than this, General Stevens knows, for we three talked of it in the evening, that General Wright had been expressing our great surprise at this delay, while we were waiting for his fire of more than the whole hour that morning. And late as this was, the appearances are all such that had General Stevens been anywhere near, or with his troops to guide and direct them and to keep them closed, I cannot have a doubt that the assault would still have been successful. I was never able to hear, nor did ny of my staff, as far as could 800 yards from the fort; and while his leading regiment and a part of his fourth regiment reached the work and remained there "some twenty minutes or more;" and when, as the gallant Morrison repeatedly stated to me, "With 40 men I could have taken the fort;" and when the men at the parapet and ditch would have readily pushed over it, if one-half even of the other four regiments had been pushed forward instead of being left (for the noble fellows did not run) to wither under the fire of the fort, at some hundreds of yards distance, without the presence of their general-their only educated soldier near-to guide and direct them. As part evidence of this I have his note, in his own handwriting, sent to me on the battle-field, which he cannot gainsay now, in which he says, "The advance company mounted the parapet, but the supports did not follow closely enough." And in this