against the State or municipal law will be arrested by the provost-marshal and turned over to the ordinary criminal tribunal. An order has been issued here so far modifying the effect of martial law as to enable the courts of the city to take cognizance "of the probate of wills, the adminstration of the estates of deceased persons and the qualifications of guardians, to enter the decrees and orders for the partition and sale of property, to make orders concerning roads and bridges, to asses county levies, and order the payment of county dues." A similar modification will be made in your depatment if required and desired by you. As to the militia, you will have received orders and instructions for their organization and enrollment, under which you will act. The course of procedure above directed for the enforcement of martial law has been pursued here with much success and without complaint. You will decide whether to appoint one provost-marshal with deputies, or one for each city, adopting the course which in your judgment will insure uniformity of action and promptness and efficiency in enforcing the law. I will observe the same thing the same thing as to the number of courts-martial to be ordered. I deem it scarcely necessary to say that I did not intend in my previous lette, r nor do I now, to reflect in any way on the motives or actions of Lieutenant-Colonel Cantwell in the discharge of his duties, and desire you to so inform that officer. This renders it unnecessary for me to specify the acts of Lieutenant-Colonel Cantwell which have been made the subject of complaint to the Governor.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General, Commanding.

[11.]

RICHMOND, VA., March 29, 1862.

Honorable G. W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War:

SIR: Yours dated the 25th instant, inclosing a copy of the letter of Major-General Huger of the 16th of February, 1862, was received by me in this city on the 28th instant. Duties before the committee of the House of Representatives of Congress, appointed to inquire into the causes of the defeat at Roanoke Island, have delayed the reply which I now desire to make to that letter in order to negative each and every one of its material statements, which I pronounce as unjust to me as they are unworthy of a commander in the position of General Huger. Late on the 8th of February I, then an invalid, was removed from Nag's Head to Gallop's Ferry, and thence, on the 9th, up the Currituck Sound to Poplar Springs, whithin ten miles of the Currituck bridge, at the southern section of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. On the 10th, from Poplar Springs, I addressed to General Huger a full report of all the information I had respecting the battle at Roanoke Island, and on the morning of that day, early, I proceeded to Currituck bridge in company with the colonel of the regiment of North Carolina militia for that county. As soon as I arrived at the bridge a messenger placed in my hands the orders of which the following are copies.*

When I reached Currituck bridge, and when these orders reached me, Colonel Corprew and his battalion of five companies had not reached that place. You will observe, sir, that they were not addressed to Colonel

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*See Huger to senior officer and Anderson to senior officer, VOL. IX, p. 155.

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