[First indorsement.]

NOVEMBER 29, 1864.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY:

For counsel. What do you advise?

J. A. S.,

Secretary.

[Second indorsement.]

SECRETARY OF WAR:

I think that Judge Thompson's decision is erroneous.

The military act places a large proportion of the arms-bearing men of the country in the military service and then permits the Secretary to detail, that is, to designate certain persons for special service, essential to the army and public. The person detailed acquires no vested right or property i the detail. It is made for public considerations and is revocable when those considerations cease to operate in reference to the person and class. The person detailed cannot purchase it so as to acquire a permanent privilege. The judge has failed to distinguish the limits between acts of administration which belong to the executive department to be disposed of according to discretion and those acts which vest rights and create conditions which are of judicial cognizance. Judges of State course have no great experience on questions of the former kind and are very apt to fall into errors about them, the executive administration of the State governments having been so limited. There is no remedy unless the Congress will organize a judiciary sufficiently strong as to dispose of questions arising under the constitution and laws of the Confederate States, or, what would be better at this time, to withdraw all this class of questions form the cognizance of the State judges by a suspension of the writ they employ, the real benefit form which suspension is the eradication of this unauthorized interference with such questions.

J. A. CAMPBELL.

PETERSBURG, November 28, 1864.

General J. A. EARLY:

GENERAL: A scout within enemy's lines reports that he heard from many Federal officers, General August among them, at the time they were abandoning the Manassas road, that it was their intention to rebuild the Winchester and Potomac road and to construct a new road from Winchester to Strasburg to connect with the Manassas road, which, it was stated, was perfect to Harrisonburg, except the bridges; that Sheridan would winter about and in advance of Winchester to construct this railroad. Do yo see any indications of this being accomplished? I do not know in what condition the railroad is between Strasburg and Harrisonburg, but, if the enemy is preparing to connect Winchester and Strasburg, it must be destroyed, and the rails, if possible, carried to other roads.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General.