service." I should have been greatly obliged if you had given a reason why militia mustered into service for the period of six months with the express promise that they should be permitted to remain at home in the pursuit of their "ordinary avocations," except in "emergencies" or to meet 'sudden and transient incursions of the enemy," could not receive furloughs and return home between "emergencies" or 'sudden and transient incursions of the enemy" and reassemble on the recurrence of the emergency. Why could not the same men living in the same district, united for the same purpose to defend the same territory against 'sudden and transient incursions of the enemy," have received furloughs to return home and attend to the pursuit of their "ordinary avocations" if called militia and commanded by officers appointed, as the Constitution provides, by the States, as well as if called local companies and commanded by officers appointed by the President? What strange magic is there about the President's commission which would enable men organized for service under officers holding it to receive furloughs when not needed for service which the same men, organized for the same service, could not get if their officers received their commissions in the constitutional mode from the State? If the same companies, composed of the same officers and men, may be temporarily dismissed when not needed for the service they have engaged to render, when called by the name "local companies," why may this not be done when they are called by the name militia? As no reason can exist for the distinction you attempt to draw as a justification of the President's conduct none was assigned by you. It is simply abusrd to say that the militia cannot be furloughed and sent home when not needed, to be recalled when needed. But for the interruption of our militia organization, which grew out of the conscirpt act of February last, instead of 10,000 I could have sent nearer 30,000 to Atlanta to aid in its defense. The Legislature, unfortgia, turned over to the President's control that part of the organized militia within the ages specified in the act of Congress, and when the hour or peril came out of all the large number embraced in the act of Congress and turned over to his control by the resolution of the Legislature, he had not a single one at the front with a musket in his hands to aid in the defense of the State. Of all the Confederate reserves, to which the State was told she might safely look for defense, not a man with a musket in his hands was at the front during the whole march of the Federal army from Dalton till its triumphant entrance into Atlanta. And if action had been delayed until the President called, as shown by the date of his call, not a man of all the reserve militia of the State would have been there. The Confederate reserves organized were not sufficiently numerous to guard the unarmed Federal prisoners in the State and I had to furnish, when their services were much needed at the front, a battalion of militia to aid them.

The interruption by the State authorities to which you refer is entirely imaginary. After the decision of the Legislature your officers were left perfectly free to execute the law of Congress in all its rigor. But if it were real, surely the President with the aid of his large force of officers in this State, should have been able to get somebody to the front. A single man with a good musket might have rendered some assistance, or if this, by reason of inefficiency, could not be done, if he had ordered his corps of conscript officers there, as I ordered the State officers, they were sufficiently numerous to have done essential service. For even this favor at that critical period the people of Georgia would have