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will be in a situation to receive the cooperation of the Mississippi river expedition, unless he should prove more successful than the latter.
Had I remained idle and inactive at Milliken's Bend with the army under my command until now, I should have felt myself guilty of a great crime.
Rather had I accepted the consequences of the imputed guilt of using it profitably and successfully upon my own responsibility.
The officer who, in the present strait of the country, will not assume a proper responsibility to save it, is unworthy of public trust.
Having successfully accomplished the object of this expedition, I will return to Milliken's Bend, according to my intention, communicated to you in a previous dispatch, unless otherwise ordered by you.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
John A. McCLERNAND, Major-General commanding.
General McClernand to General Grant.
headquarters, army of the Mississippi, Department of the Tennessee, before Vicksburg, Miss., January 30, 1863.
Major-General U. S. Grant, commanding Department of the Tennessee:
Your order directing me to move the camp of the Fifty-fourth Indiana volunteers outside the limits of the camp hospital, and to furnish guards for said hospital, is received.
The officer who brought you a complaint upon this subject, should not have troubled you, but should have come to me, or, having come to you, I think ought, regularly, to have been referred to me.
I denounce his complaint as an act of insubordination.
Please advise me who made the complaint.
If I am to be held responsible for the safety of this camp, I must be permitted to dispose of the forces within it as I may think proper.
The internal organization of the camp, and the disposition of its forces, are matters that properly belong to me as their immediate commander.
The Fifty-fourth Indiana was assigned to the position, coveted by the medical director or hospital surgeon, for strategic Major-General U. S. Grant, commanding Department of the Tennessee:
