gagements of the evening before, except the mere fact that there had been engagements was unknown to me; I mean the details in regard to those engagements.

Question. You have stated, or have been understood to have stated, that when you were with the accused on the 29th of August, the battle was going on, and you could hear it; will you state if you heard any other firing than that of artillery?

Answer. I do not recollect about that now; the noise was very decided, and distant from where we were, I should suppose, about 4 miles.

Question. Do you know when the infantry firing on that day commenced; was it, or not, about 4 o'clock?

Answer. I think if was much earlier than that; I have only one thing to guide me, and that is General Reynolds' report; I can refer to that, and find out more particularly if it is desired.

The examination by the accused was here closed.

Whereupon the court adjourned to 11 a.m. to-morrow.

WASHINGTON, D. C., December 13, 1862.

The court met pursuant to adjournment.

Present, Major General D. Hunter, U. S. Volunteers: Major General E. A. Hitchcock, U. S. Volunteers; Brigadier General Rufus King, U. S. Volunteers; Brigadier General B. M. Prentiss, U. S. Volunteers; Brigadier General James B. Ricketts, U. S. Volunteers, Brigadier General Silas Casey, U. S. Volunteers; Brigadier General James A. Garfield, U. S. Volunteers; Brigadier General J. P. Slough, U. S. Volunteers, and Colonel J. Holt, Judge-Advocate-General.

The accused, with his counsel, being also present.

The minutes of the last session were read and approved.

The examination of Major General IRVIN McDOWELL was then resumed, as follows:

Examination by the COURT;

Question. Did, or did not, General Porter put his troops in action at the point indicated by you at the time he said he could not go in anywhere there without getting into a fight?

Answer. Of my own knowledge, I know nothing of what General Porter did after I left him.

Question. In departing from a strict obedience to the joint order of the 29th of August, did you, or not, extend that departure beyond your own immediate command? That is, did you change the order with respect to General Porter's corps?

Answer. General Porter and I started out from Manassas with the understanding that under the article of war applicable to such cases, I had the command of the whole force-his own and my own. We each of us received, a joint order from General Pope, out then commander-in-chief, which order, whilst it did not at the time change the relations between General Porter and myself, seemed to imply that those relations were not to be constant-were not to continue. I decided under the latitude allowed in that order that General Porter should put his troops in to the right of where the head of his column then lay, and that I would take mine away from the road on which our two commands then lay, up the Sudley Springs, road into the battle in this way dissolving the joint operations of our two corps; and, from the moment I left General Porter, I considered he was no longer under my immediate control, or under my immediate command or my direct orders, but that he came under those of our common commander-in-chief, we not then being on the same immediate ground. The article to which I refer is the Sixty-second Article of War, which directs that, when troops happen to meet the senior officer commands the whole. I considered that article of war to apply up to the time that I left General Porter and broke my command away