On page 599 [973] of the record, in his cross-examination by the judge-advocate, General Morell states explicitly:

The enemy in our front, if we had moved to the right, would have threatened our own left very seriously.

In continuance of his cross-examination on page 602 [974], General Morell also testifies, referring to the official map:

The only enemy that I supposed were within my reach were directly in front of us, just about where this line is. I could not see them; I could only judge from the reports. When they opened with their artillery they were directly opposite my front, and then a short time after that some guns opened from the top of a hill off to their left, considerably beyond our right.

On this mass of affirmative evidence I rest the fact, not perfectly ascertained, and altogether controlling in this trial, that, during the whole afternoon and evening of the 29th of August last, a powerful and continually increasing separate force of the enemy was in battle array, in an almost impregnable position, directly i my front.

But I cannot take leave of this most important point without a moment's reference to the strange and only effort which has been resorted to through or by the officer who has signed the charges against me to rebut the testimony which I have presented. For this purpose, General Benjamin S. Roberts takes the stand, and informs the court that, not having any special command during the 29th of August, the traversed the greater part or the whole of the battle-field of General Pope, having been early in the day furnished with an eye-glass by General Pope, and direct with it to watch from after the advance of the re-enforcing bodies of the enemy as they appear to have come up from the gaps in the general direction of the battle-field and its vicinity. He states that he did thus carefully watch the clouds of dust which they raised, and that in his undoubting judgment the masses of the enemy's troops were mostly moving on the Warrenton turnpike, between Gainesville and the battle-field. He appears, by his testimony, during his rides over the field, to have had one or two glimpses of some portion of my force, but he does not pretend that he saw anything of it after 1 o'clock. He thinks he was at one time within a mile and a half of my line, but, unfortunately for his observation, a wood intervened between him and me, and so he could see nothing of me or my force. The ground in my front, in which the enemy was posted, he does not pretend, as I understand, to have seen at all. In this state of facts, in reply to a question from the court, he testifies his confident conviction that there was during the whole afternoon no enemy's force in my front save only some cavalry with some light artillery. When such rebutting testimony as this, mere speculation and conjecture at the best, is deliberately presented upon such a point at the close of this more than forty days' trial by the inspector-general of the Army of Virginia, my accuser upon the record, I respectfully submit to the court that it is more than conclusive proof - it is manifest confession - that neither the commander of the Army of Virginia, who does not pretend to any personal knowledge on this point, nor the Government, can produce one particle of rebutting evidence as to the whole fact of the enemy's force in my front which is entitled to a moment's consideration even if it be fit to be heard.

To return, then, to the propositions in which I stated the general line of my defense against this specification, I now respectfully submit to the court that they are both satisfactory made out to the full extent of the terms in which they are stated. That I could not at any time have literally obeyed the order of 4.30 p.m. of that day, by attacking