of further aids for the defense of Georgia, you declined to write, as an inadequate mode of duly communicating the circumstances of the condition to be presented, but said, could you believe it advantageous, you would proceed in person to the capital and make the required representations in full; tould recognize the importance of such visit and be prepared to submit the condition of things you must first see and have full knowledge from General Johnston himself of the condition of affairs and his views thereon; that in consequence, with the concurrence of Governor Brown, you visited the army, and there, having sought General Johnston and informed him of the purpose of your visit, he expressed gratification and a wish that you should proceed on your mission, and had with you full conference as to the events and prospects of the campaign and the existing condition of affairs.

In such conference he stated that from Dalton to his then position on Kenesaw Mountain, although willing and anxious to fight if he could only obtain a fair field, he had, by the constant intrenching and flank movements of the enemy, been unable to find the opportunity, except by attacking the enemy in his intrenchments, and had consequently been compelled to fall back by successive retreats; that he had been unable to prevent or control such necessity; that the ary of the enemy consisted, when the campaign opened at Dalton, of 93,000 men; that in the various unsuccessful attacks and encounters of the enemy they had suffered far more seriously than his army, and that nothwithstanding re-enforcements received by them his army was relatively more numerous and stronger than when the campaign opened at Dalton; that he felt himself fully competent to encounter and believed he could defeat the enemy if only he could be dought out of his intrenchments in an equal field, but that such were his movements and his system of advance, as if by besieging, that he had not and did not believe he could secure such opportunity of fighting him; that with the army and means at his command he was unable to repel the enemy from Georgia or prevent his advance, and that the only mode by which, in his opinion, such results could be obtained was to have the enemy's communications with his base of supplies behind cut, and thus to compel him to withdraw; that this could only be done by forces other than those in his army or under his comand, and that such interruption of communications by some externat forces was a necessity for the defense of Atlanta and the protection of Georgia; that a force of 4,000 or 5,000 cavalry sent from some other command in the rear of the enemy would entirely suffice for such operations.

On being questioned by you as to the character and condition of the enemy's cavalry in comparison with his own, he said they were inefficient and would not fight his cavalry without infantry supports, but he insisted his cavalry were indispensable with his army to its safety and protection, and that he could spare none for the enterprise of interrupting communications. On your emphatic inquiries, varied in form several times in order to leave no doubt on your mind or on his as to the full import of the statement, he stated distinctly and positively that with his army and resources he could not repel the enemy nor protect the State, and that aids from other commands to cut communications were indispensable; that when, in the further course of the conversation, you urged on his attention all the consequences that must follow from the continued advances of the enemy, and that ultimately the wwhich our armies, both in Virginia and Georgia, depended would be commanded by them and the Confederacy completely sundered, and as you feared, irretrievably ruined, he