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“ [236] meant to tell the Secretary of War that I considered the order directing me to command here as limiting my authority to this department, especially when that order was accompanied by War Department orders transferring troops from Tennessee to Mississippi.”

XX. This is in substance a repetition of the previous statement, without any reason being given for it. The fact of orders being sent to you to transfer some of the troops in your department from one point to another, to which you were proceeding in person, could give no possible ground for your “considering” that Special Order No. 275 was rescinded or modified. Your command of your geographical district did not make you independent of my orders as your superior officer, and, when you were directed by me to take troops with you to Mississippi, your control over the district to which you were assigned was in no way involved. But the statement that troops were transferred from Tennessee to Mississippi by order of the War Department, when you were directed to repair to the latter State, gives but half the fact; for, although you were ordered to take with you three thousand good troops, you were told to replace them by a greater number then on their way to Mississippi, and whom you were requested to direct to Tennessee, the purpose being to hasten reenforcements to Pemberton without weakening Bragg. This was in deference to your own opinion that Bragg could not be safely weakened, nay, that he ought even to be reenforced at Pemberton's expense, for you had just ordered troops from Pemberton's command to reenforce Bragg. I differed


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