We have entire confidence in General Lee, and doubt not he will do all for us that can be done.

With the highest esteem and respect, your most obedient servant,

W. H. SYME.

QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT, Richmond, Va., September 21, 1861.

Honorable J. P. BENJAMIN, Acting Secretary of War:

SIR: I received your letter of yesterday in regard to the reported detention of cars at Manassas, and, in obedience to your instructions, have the honor to inform you that I received a telegraph yesterday from Major Cabell, chief of the quartermaster's department at Manasas, informing me that the cars of the Central Railroad were never unnecessarily detained at Manassas, and that no cars were now there. His dispatch was in reply to mine ordering the cars immediately to Richmond. I had been informed by a railroad president that some hundred railroad cars were detrained at Manassas.

Several of the Central Railroad cars are detained at Millborough, beyond Staunton. As far as I can discover, there is a mistake in the report of the detention at Manassas.

The superintendent of the Central Railroad, in his reply to my questions to him on the subject of the detention of cars at Manassas, concludes with these works: "I have been misinformed."

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. C. MYERS,

Quartermaster-General.

RICHMOND, September 22, 1861.

A. C. MYERS, Quartermaster-General:

SIR: I have your letter of 21st instant, which exonerates from blame the quartermaster at Manassas, but this is only half the result required in my letter to you of the 20th instant. I desire to know whose is the fault that the transportation on the road was so blocked up-by the absence of cars from Richmond that he commissary-General was unable to get one thousand barrels of flour conveyed tot he army in an emergency. We have now a definite issue before us. You have ascertained that the blame was not attributable to the officer at Manassas. Who was the delinquent? I must insist that the investigation be pursued until the question is satisfactory answered.

Please to report as early as possible.

Your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Acting Secretary of War.

HEADQUARTERS, BROKE'S STATION, September 22, 1861.

Colonel J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of War:

DEAR SIR: Yours of the 20th instant is received. I do not see how it is possible for me to aid the fugitive patriots in escaping from Maryland.