which my notions, loose as they are, cannot stand; therfore you will please ex use me for troubling you on the subject.

I am, sir, yours, most respectfully,

M. JEFF. THOMPSON,

Brigadier General, Missouri State Guard, on Special Service, C. S. Army.

[17.]

UNION, MONROE COUNTY, VA., july 3, 1862.

Honorable G. W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War, C. S. A.:

DEAR SIR: Feeling a very deep intersect in the success of our cause, and knowing that its success depends greatly upon the competency and effieceinecy of the ofd of our armies, and that it is exceedingly difficult for you to know or ascertain the competency of many officers you have to appoint to important commands, and knowing you desire to obtain all the information possible in regard to qualification s of commanders, we deem it out duty to state to you probably something of the management of General Heth while lately in command of the forces in this section of that State, as he may be assigned to some important command, the failure of which would much embarrass our cause. General Heth, from all we can see or know, is a gentleman, and we feel no prejudice toward him, tu we believe that his want of energy and capacity totally disqualify him for a brigade or division commander. All his operations have proved failures. At Giles Court- House he permitted 600 or the enemy to take possession of the place, and when he brought 2,000 men up to attack them (and when all could have been surrounded and captured) he permitted them to escape with the loss of not more than four. A few days subsequently he marched his forces within there miles of Mercer Court- House, where the enemy was about 2,000 strong, and had on the same evening been met and defeated by Colonel Wharton, and were completerly demoralized, adss admitted by their commander, and the whole of the enemy must have been captured by General Heth; but when getting within three miles of them he ordered a retreat and fell back twenty miles, a dn permitted the enemy to escape. Afterward, the affair at Lewisburg came off, and all the officers we have conversed with assure us the victory would have been complete over the enemy had it not been for the unfortunate orders of General Heth. But to cap the climax, the passage of the enemy through this place and this country is the most inexcusable and disgraceful. The enemy (1,700 strong) was permitted to leave Meadow Bluff, in Greenbrier; march into the county of Monroe; remain in the county three nights; pass through General Heth's camp at Salt Sulphur; through Union, carrying off a large number of negroes and other property of the citizens; and General Heth ran from the Salt Sulphur into the mountains, with the Twenty- second Regiment of Infantry, the Forty- fifth Regiment of Infantry, the Eighth Regiment of Cavalry, Jackson's batallion of cavalry, also Edgar's BATTALION OF INFANTRY AND FOUR COMPANIES OF ARTILLERY, WITH THE THIRTY- SIXTH REGIMENT SO LOCATED AS TO FALL IN THE ENEMY'S REAR, IF SO ORDERED; AND GENERAL Heth remained hid until the enemy passed; and after he had got away with the negroes, beef- cattle, horuses, and wagons he had seized and taken from the citizens, General Heth came out from his hiding place, and again occupoied his camps, at or near the Salt Sulphur. We will not characterize General heth's conduct, as is universally done here, as cowardly and traitors, but merely state the fact, so you may know what position it might