General Rodes, reported of Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston that "the good of the service demands that he shall be placed in command of the brigade in preference to all others." This recommendation was indorsed and approved by the corps commander, Lieutenant-General Ewell, and by the commanding general, Robert E. Lee. It bears my indorsement in the following words: "Appointed as recommended. J. D." The third instance is that of Colonel McElroy, who is stated by you to have been superseded by Colonel Scales, although "as you learn, the former was recommended by General Pender." No recommendation of Colonel McElroy is on file in the War Office, but General Pender's recommendation of Colonel Scales is appended. That noble soldier, whose name is a glorious legacy to his mother State, North Carolina, twice urged the promotion of Colonel Scales, but there was no vacant brigade at the date of the first recommendation. On the second occasion General Pender's request that Colonel Scales should be preferred as being worthy of promotion, and as being the senior colonel of the brigade, was indorsed by Lieutenant General A. P. Hill and the commanding general, Robert E. Lee. It may be added that Colonel Scales was also recommended by the officers of his regiment and by the North Carolina delegation in both Houses of Congress. I have thus stated the facts as to the three cases you specify, and refrain from comment on the contrast between these facts and your accusations.

You further specify the case of one civilian, the former district attorney of the United States, Robert P. Dick, who was not reappointed by me, and as you aver, "for the avowed reason that he was slow to leave the old Government." If any such expression was used by me, of which I have no recollection whatever and which I do not believe was made by me, it was simply the mildest form of indicating my distrust of this person, who, if my information is correct, is not considered in North Carolina to be well affected to the cause to which her honor is committed, and I do you the justice to declare my disbelief that you are right in associating yourself and a majority of the people of North Carolina as being on the same footing of "suspicion" as this man.

You state in your letter that "as my denial of relates only to the army appointments, you presume I admit its justice with regard to the civil appointments, and you need cite co cases of the latter character." My letter, on the contrary, distinctly denied your whole charge, both as to civil and military appointments, in the passage marked second; and you thus compel me reluctantly to the statement that I made this distinct denial on both points for the reason that I foresaw from the tone of your correspondence that you would put on my language the most uncharitable construction that it would bear.

In answer to my request for specification of the basis of your complaint that redress of grievances for the citizens of North Carolina was impossible, you cite three cases, none of which ever came to my knowledge before, and in none of which do you forward any papers of point out the redress that you deem it in my power to give. If I have no power to grant redress, as seems to be intimated by some of your expressions, it is difficult to understand why such acrimonious complaints should have been addressed to me. If the remedy lies in my power, the papers necessary to put me in possession of the cases should have been forwarded with the complaints if they were designed to be an appeal from the action of the Secretary of War.

There are other passages of your letter in which you have so far infringed the proprieties of official intercourse as to preclude the possibility of reply. In order that I may not again be subjected to the