LOUISA COURT-HOUSE, February 29, 1864.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General:

A scout reports to General Long at Frederick's Hall, the enemy's cavalry, say 1,000 strong, moving toward Richmond on the main road from Louisa Court-House, about thirty-five miles from Richmond, at perhaps 5 p. m.

W. N. PENDLETON,

Brigadier-General and Chief of Artillery.

[33.]

LOUISA COURT-HOUSE, February 29, 1864.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General:

GENERAL: The enemy on a raid near Frederick's Hall. General Long there with artillery. Second Corps has no infantry. I have informed General Lee. Can troops go up form Hanover Junction? Anything done shall be prompt. The down train returnd to Gordonsville.

W. N. PENDLETON,

Brigadier-General.

[33.]

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

Richmond, Va., February 29, 1864.

His Excellency Z. B. VANCE,

Raleigh, N. C.:

SIR: Your letter of the 9th instant was received on the 13th, but the close of the Congressional session imposed on me duties too engrossing to permit a prompt reply. Your counsels upon matters of grave import to the success of our cause in North Carolina have received from me to consideration to which they are entitled as emanating from the Governor of a sovereign State. But I regret that y; ou have deemed proper in urging your views to make unjust reflections upon my official conduct, and to accompany them by assertins which you would in vain attempt to sustain by proof. In my earnest desire to avoid every possible controversy with all whose co-operation can be made valuable in the defense of the country, I would have preferred to remain silent under these reflections, and to have left to time and the sober judgment of my countrymen the vindication of my course form your arraignment. But public interests are involved which preclude this course, for some of your statements, if [not] contradicted, would tend to create hostility to the Government and undermine its power to provide for the public defense. I therefore deem it a duty to respond. When you assert that there has been "what seemed a studied exclusion of the antisecessionists from all the more important offices of the Government, even from those promotins in the army which many of them had won with their blood," I c\am compelled to characterize the statement as unjust to my conduct, my feelings, and my character. You cannot expect me to receive such a charge from the Governor of a State without insisting on a specification. I must therefore request that you give the name, not of "many," but of one officer whose promotion has been refused on the grounds or for the reason you mention. If unable to maintain this assertion, I leave to your own sense of justice to determine how best to repair the wrong done. In the meantime I assert that there exists