sufficient body of cavalry for this service, as its assistance was absolutely necessary in the defense of every position we occupied. Captain Harvey, an officer of great courage and sagacity, was detached on this service with 100 men on the 11th of June, and remained for several weeks near the railroad, frequently interrupting (although not strong enough to prevent) its use.

Early in the campaign the statements of the strength of the cavalry in the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana given me by Lieutenant-General Polk, just from the command of that department, and my telegraphic correspondence with his successor, Lieutenant General S. D. Lee, gave me reason to hope that a competent force could be sent from Mississippi and Alabama to prevent the use of the railroad by the U. S. army. I, therefore, suggested it to the President directly on the 13th of June and 16th of July, and through General Bragg on the 3d, 12th, 13th, 16th, and 26th of June, and also to Lieutenant-General Lee on the 10th of May and 3d, 11th, and 16th of June. I did so in the belief that this cavalry would serve the Confederacy better by causing the defeat of Major-General Sherman's army than by repelling a raid in Mississippi.

Besides the causes of my removal alleged in the telegram announcing it, various other accusations have been made against me; some published in newspapers, in such a manner as to appear to have official authority, and others circulated orally in Georgia and Alabama, and imputed to General Gragg. The principal are-that I persistently disregarded the instructions of the President; that I would not fight the enemy; that I refused to defend Atlanta; that I refused to communicate with General Bragg in relation to the operations of the army; that I disregarded his entreaties to change my course and attack the enemy, and gross exaggerations of the losses of the army. I had not the advantage of receiving the Present's instructions in relation to the manner of conducting the campaign, but as the conduct of my predecessor in retreating before odds less than those confronting me had apparently been approved, and as General Lee, in keeping on the defensive and retreating toward Grant's objective point under circumstances like mine, was adding to his great fame, both in the estimation of the administration and people, I supposed that my course would not be censured. I believed then, as I do now, that it was the only one at my command which promised success.

I think that the foregoing narrative shows that the Army of Tennessee did fight, and with at least as much effect as it had ever done before. The proofs that I intended to hold Atlanta are-the fact that under my orders the work of strengthening its defenses was going on vigorously, the communication on the subject made by me to General Hood, and the left that my family was in the town. That the public workshops were removed and no large supplies deposited in the town, as alleged by General Bragg, were measures of common prudence, and no more indicated an intention to abandon the place than the sending the wagons of an army to the rear on a day of battle proves a foregone determination to abandon the field.

While General Bragg was at Atlanta, about the middle of July, we had no other conversation concerning the army there than such as I introduced. He asked me no questions regarding its operations, past or future; made no comments upon them nor suggestions, and had not the slightest reason to suppose that Atlanta would not be defended. He told me that the object of his journey was to confer