siege supposed to be 2,500. General Green the only general officer killed. The garrison left Vicksburg on the 11th, and will reach a point 10 miles east of Brandon on Wednesday, the 15th. Colonel Fuller thinks the troops are much demoralized, and a large proportion of the men will straggle. The cause is their objection to going to a paroled camp. They ask a furlough of thirty days, which General Pemberton recommends. Subsisting these men will be attended with serious difficulties.

J. E. Johnston.

RICHMOND, VA., July 14, 1863.

General JOSEPH E. Johnston,

Jackson, MISS.:

Your dispatch of yesterday received. If lists of the paroled prisoners, as heretofore directed, be promptly furnished, there will be no need to detain the men in a paroled camp, as we shall insist on immediate discharge, and give to them an opportunity again to serve their country.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

JACKSON, MISS., July 14, 1863.

(Received Richmond, Va., July 15.)

His Excellency President DAVIS:

We learn from Vicksburg that a large force lately left that place to turn us on the north. This will compel us to abandon Jackson. The troops before us have been intrenching and erecting batteries since their arrival.

J. E. Johnston.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

Richmond, July 15, 1863.

General JOSEPH E. Johnston, C. S. Army:

GENERAL: [I. *] Your dispatch of the 5th instant, stating that you "considered" your" assignment to the immediate command in Mississippi" as giving you a"new position," and as"limiting your authority," being a repetition of a statement which you were informed was a grave error, and being persisted in after your failure to point out, when requested, the letter or dispatch justifying you in such a conclusion, rendered it necessary, as you were informed in my dispatch of 8th instant, that I should make a more extended reply than could be given in a telegram. That there may be no possible room for further mistake in this matter, I am compelled to recapitulate the substance of all orders and instructions given to you so far as they bear on this question.

[II.] On the 24th November last you were assigned, by Special Orders, Numbers 275, to a defined geographical command. 24th November, 1862. The description included a portion of Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia, the States of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, and that part of the State of Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. The order concluded in the following language:

General Johnston will, for the purpose of correspondence and reports, establish his headquarters at Chattanooga, or such other place as in his judgment will best secure communication with the troops within the limits of his command, and will repair in person to any part of said command whenever his presence may for the time be necessary or desirable.

---------------

*The paragraphs were numbered by General Johnston.

---------------