that a candid examination of the affair will at once restore me to the position of honor and usefulness that I can prove that my whole course in this war has entitled me to claim.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. BENHAM,

Brigadier-General.

P. S.-A longer explanation was sent to the Secretary of War on June 27, to which I respectfully refer.

[Indorsements.]

AUGUST 7, 1862.

I respectfully recommend that Brigadier-General Benham be mustered out of service as a brigadier-general of volunteers.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

AUGUST 7, 1862.

Approved.*

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

[Inclosure Numbers 7.]

WASHINGTON, D. C., August 13, 1862.

His Excellency the PRESIDENT:

SIR: I have the appeal to you from what I conceive to be the most cruel injustice ever inflicted upon an officer of our army. By a note, of which I inclose a copy, from Adjutant-General Townsend, I am informed that you have directed the revocation of my commission as brigadier-general, and this without any cause assigned, and when I have four times in the past month asked at the War Department if there were any allegations against me there, and all without reply. I am, therefore, left to infer or suspect that it is in consequence of charges such as have lately been published in the newspapers in relation to the affair on James Island, South Carolina, on the 16th of June; First, that in directing that attack I disobeyed the orders of General Hunter; second, that I overruled the remonstrances of the other generals; third, that it was not necessary, and, fourth, that it was badly planned. Not aware of anything else but those, which I have here brought into definite shape, I would here state that I fell I could refute completely every one of these charges if I could only have a trial. I claim I could show that I did not disobey the orders of General Hunter, but that I implicitly followed them in attacking the Secessionville battery, as he ordered me in writing to "provide a secure entrenched encampment," and had twice verbally authorized this attack. Second, I aver that neither of the generals remonstrated against this attack nor did I have a suspicion that they were opposed to it, and the inclosed printed letter of Senior Naval Officer Drayton (the only witness not a party now) wows that, though he had that suspicion, yet "no one side as much as this" (that he was opposed to it), and that the only opposition to my plan was General Stevens' wish to attack in the afternoon instead of ad daylight, as I ordered. That wish I did overrule, and that only; while

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*Appointment as brigadier-general United States Volunteers revoked same day.

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