DALTON, January 11, 1864.

Major-General MAURY,

Mobile:

You belong to Lieutenant-General Polk's command; therefore I cannot send troops without orders from Richmond. Nor can I judge without knowing your resources and General Polk's intentions. Clanton ought to be sent to Virginia.

J. E. JOHNSTON.

[32.]

HEADQUARTERS DIVISION,
Near Dalton, January 12, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of Confederate States:

I feel it my duty as an officer of the Army to lay before the Chief Magistrate of the Southern Confederacy the within document,* which was read on the night of the 2nd of January, 1864, at a meeting which I attend in obedience to the following order:

HEADQUARTERS HARDEE'S CORPS,
Dalton, Ga., January 2, 1864.

Major-General WALKER:

Commanding Division:

GENERAL: Lieutenant-General Hardee desires that you will meet him at General Johnston's headquarters this evening at 7 o'clock.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

D. H. POOLE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Having, after the meeting adjourned, expressed my determination to apply to General Cleburne for a copy of the document to forward to the War Department, some of the gentlemen who were present at that meting insisted upon their sentiments on so grave a subject being known to the Executive. I informed them that I would address a letter to each of the gentlemen present at the meeting, which I did. I addressed a note to General Cleburne, asking him for a copy of the document, informing him that I felt it myduty to forward it to the War Department; that should he do so I would, of course, give him a copy of the indorsement I made on it. He furnished me with a copy, and avowed himself its author. I applied to the commanding general for permission to send it to the War Department through the proper officila channel, which, for reasons satisfactory to himself, he declined to do; hence the reason for it not reaching you through the oficial channel. The gravity of the subject, the magnitude of the issues involved, my strong convictions that the further agitation of such sentiments and propositions would ruin the efficacy of our Army and involve our cause in ruin and digrace constitute my reasons for bringing the document before the Executive.

W. H. T. WALKER,

Major-General.

[32.]

DALTON, January 12, 1864.

Brigadier-General LAWTON,

Richmond:

Bad corn is furnished-much unfit for issue, weevil-eaten. Unless there if reform we shall lose our artillery horses and filed transporta-

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*See p. 586.

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