lies the main secret of the failure after the attack in open day, which I did not authorize and would not sanction the repetition of-an attack started, in defiance of my repeated orders, in open light. Captain Doyle, of the Eighth Michigan, who led the advance companies, state to me, that it "was good light to aim" when they met the first pickets, just after starting, or nearly 1 mile from the fort. And the man who delayed this attack is the person, and the only person, in my opinion, who is responsible for all the slaughter there, and for the loss of the key to the eventual attack on Charleston.

With this and the statement that I have now General Stevnes' letter, volunteered to me, with his own propositions "to seize James Island below James River," and, of course, including this fort, sent just before this similar movement was first planned, I am willing to let the subject be submitted to an intelligent public.

H. W. BENHAM.

NEW YORK, July 16, 1862.

[Inclosure Numbers 6.]

NEW YORK, July 28, 1862.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief, U. S. Army:

SIR: As the three applications which I have made to the Adjutant-General of the Army have remained unnoticed or unreplied to, I avail myself of what I understand to be the custom and the right of officers in such cases, and appeal to the next superior, yourself, to ask that the arrest on limits, which has now been continued upon me for forty days, against the spirit, if not the letter even of the Articles of War, shall at once be remitted, or that I shall, at least, be furnished with a copy of any charges or allegations against me, and a court-material, or, at least a court of inquiry, to examine the same, or that, if there are no such charges, I ask that I shall at once be honorably released, as I know I deserve to be, and restored to my usefulness in the Army. From the moment of my arrest to this time I have not had the slightest intimation as to the cause of this arrest, though it is true, some hours previously, General Hunter did allege that I had disobeyed his orders, a copy of which I herewith inclose,* and with a map, self-explanatory, as I think, and I submit that I did not disobey his orders, but that I did endeavor to obey them, as I intended to, most implicitly. I did not "advance on Charleston or attack Fort Johnson," nor did I move at all on the routes to these positions, some 6 to 10 miles distant, and I endeavor to " provide a secure entrenched encampment, "by attempting to seize a rebel battery that covered our camps with its fire, scarcely leaving beyond it a quarter of a mile square of dry land on James Island for our 9,000 to 10,000 men, and this attack I claim, and will swear, was twice verbally authorized, as far as I could understand words of approval by General Hunter in my private conversations with himself before he left the StoNumbers I therefore, as an act of the commonest justice due to the most inferior officer of the Army, not to refer to my present rank, nor to the good opinion I do not doubt you entertained of me while a member of the same Corps of Engineers, would ask an early investigation of my cause by yourself, if possible, and with me present, if the two inclosed papers are not sufficiently explanatory; for I feel well assured

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*See p. 46.

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