enemy, and to the defense of their own homes and the intrenchments around them by those who live in cities "to neighborhood defense," "casual raids," &c., with the clear promise to all that so soon as such emergency had passed they should be permitted to return home and attend to their "ordinary avocations," their "business or domestic engagements," &c. The troops recollect how this promise was kept. But you charge that I had formed nondescript organizations not conforming to the regulations of the Provisional Army, scant in men and abounding in officers, with every variety of obligation for local service, generally of the most restricted character, and for the brief period of only six months. Each organization formed by me was in conformity to the statutes, copies of which you inclosed as the guide for my action, and for the exact time designated in your requisition over your own signature. Each had the number of men specified in the statutes, and no one of them had a supernumerary officer with my consent, or so far as I know or believe. The requisition expressly authorized me to accept troops for local defense of the most restricted character, with "the limitations prescribed in their muster-rolls of service only at home or at specified points of importance." But while you expressly authorized this, I refused to do it, except in case of companies of mechanics and other workmen in cities - the operatives in factories and the employes of railroads, &c. - when the nature of their avocations made it actually necessary. In all other cases I refused to accept the companies when tendered it their muster-rolls did not cover and bind them to defend at least one-fourth of the whole territory of the State. Many of them covered the whole territory of the State with the conditions of their muster-rolls. Some complaints were made at my course, because I required more than was required by either the acts of Congress or the requisition of the Secretary of War.

Another charge is that when called out 'scarce a decent division of 4,000 men could be mustered for the field, and then only for six months." Your obliviousness of facts, as well as of records, is indeed remarkable. Only those whose muster-rolls embraced Atlanta and the territory between it and the Tennessee line were called out till near the end of the period for which all were enlisted, and you got a division of many more than 4,000 within that boundary. The others, over 12,000, were "at home" engaged in their "ordinary avocations," ready to respond to your call in case of an "emergency" or 'sudden incursion of the enemy." But you never called for any of them till a short tiem before the end of the term of their enlistment. Those you then called out you never even armed, and it was believed by them that they were only assembled for the convenience of the conscript officers to save them the trouble of searching through the country to see if any among them were subject to conscription. Nobody pretended that there was any "emergency" or 'sudden incursion of the enemy" at the time of the last call in the sections of the State they had agreed to defend. I have gone thus fully into this record for the purpose of showing the palpable injustive which you attempt to do me and of exposing the flimsy pretext under which you seek to defend the bad faith which was exercised by the Government toward the gallant men who by their prompt response more than doubly filled your requisition in its letter and spirit.

As a last means of escape you say I persistently claimed that they should be held and regarded as militia. "In that case they could not, if dismissed, be recalled on emergency as local troops and this naturally induced their detention for the full period of their limited term of

50 R R - VOL LII, PT II