previous next

Doc. 158.-the military power of Tennessee.


Letter from Governor Harris.

To the Editors of the Memphis Avalanche:--
Your editorial of yesterday morning justifies me in asking the use of your columns to correct an error into which a portion of the public press have fallen. That error is in relation to the supposed existence of an issue between the President of the Confederate States and myself as to the terms upon which the Provisional army of Tennessee is to be transferred to the Government of the Confederate States.

There has been no issue whatever, nor the slightest misunderstanding, between that Government or any one of its officers and myself upon that subject.

I have, from the beginning, seen the importance of placing all the military resources and military appropriations of the several States under the control of the Confederate States, and on the 24th of June, and several times since that day, have written to the President calling his attention to the importance of transferring the army of Tennessee to the Confederate States, and suggesting the importance of having an understanding with regard to several questions connected with the transfer. I have also suggested that, when Tennessee shall have contributed her 25,000 brave volunteers to the Government, she would be entitled to, and I was confident would receive at the hands of the President, her full proportion of the posts of honor, as well as those of danger, in the field and staff appointments in the army.

I have recommended in general terms the various officers heretofore appointed by me, and insisted upon their reappointment by the President; but have at no time made or thought of making the appointment of any man or set of men a condition precedent to the transfer. So far from it, I have regarded it as a matter of too much importance to the public to allow the interests of any individual to retard it for a moment.

I have an agent now at Richmond for the purpose of conferring with the President and Secretary of War upon all questions that it is deemed important to have understood in making this transfer. I have no doubt they will be settled to the entire satisfaction of the Government and myself in a few days, as they are of a character which need only to be suggested to be settled. This, doubtless, would have been done long since, but for the immense pressure of important duties devolving upon the President. When it is done, the transfer will be properly made.

I shall continue to insist, as well after as before making the transfer, upon having full justice done to the State in the general and staff appointments. I, however, have not at any time doubted the disposition of the President to do ample justice to Tennessee and Tennesseeans by giving position to such as have shown themselves competent and worthy. More than this I shall not ask at his hands.

In the mean time I shall continue to cooperate most cordially with the President, and his various officers, as I have heretofore done, in promptly carrying forward all military movements deemed by them proper to be made. I have at this moment in motion, under the orders of the President, eight Tennessee regiments.

I have deemed this explanation due to the public and myself.

Respectfully


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Tennessee (Tennessee, United States) (5)
United States (United States) (4)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Isham G. Harris (2)
Doc (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
June 24th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: