very rarely inflicted upon officers and about as rarely upon soldiers. My judgment is that more than one-half of the army is now absent from the field. Some regiments that I have commanded, I was informed, had in one or two instances but little over one-third of the men that were in the service in the field; and it has been impossible to get the subaltern officers to either report or punish the straggling of soldiers as a general rule-a practice, I think, which would ruin any army in the world. The subaltern officers did not want intelligence or courage, but the disposition to strictly enforce the necessary discipline. By subalterns I mean captains, lieutenants, &c.

Question. Do you attribute this lack of one-third of our forces at the present moment to absence without leave?

No, sir; but to leaves obtained on every possible kind of pretext; and that evil may in a great degree be traced to the same source I have been speaking of.

Question. Have not the rebel forces exhibited a superior steadiness under fire to our army and are they not easier handled in battle?

In attacking it seems almost impossible to repel the rebels; their dash is very hard to resist, and I have rarely seen it resisted when their troops were fresh. But one dash with the same troops is about as much as you get well done. I think our troops, if ordered to attack and well led, would probably attack as well as they do and I think may be handled as well. Individually I think the rebel soldiers are generally superior to our own, and that they understand as well as we do, and hence they never fight us in open ground where they can help it. They always skirmish where they can, that the individuality of the soldier may tell. In the battles I have seen them fight they always fought in the woods or on uneven ground if they could get it. That may in a great measure result from the desperate position they occupy and from the invincible hatred toward the Federal forces that has been inculcated by their leaders, and I think it is so. I saw them resisted for hours at Perryville, or Chaplin Hills, by the Third Division and driven back; and I must say that I do not consider any rebel command superior to that division in discipline or drill, or that could, in my judgment, whip it with equal numbers.

Question. What became of the slaves that were used on the fortifications after you were through with their labor?

In truth I never got through. I left Huntsville before the fortifications were completed and I left Nashville also before they were finished there. I think, however, I may safely say that very few of them have found their way back to their owners, even to loyal men. There were very few loyal owners about Huntsville, but a considerable number about Nashville.

Question. What do you know, general, about supplies having been furnished the army from the Tennessee River while you were at Huntsville?

I never heard of any coming from that direction.

Question. Do you know anything about the capture of Colonel Forsyth and another rebel officer, whose name I do not know, near Horse Well or in that neighborhood?

Yes, sir; I know all about it. Colonel Forsyth was, I think, on Bragg's, staff. There was a Major Sheppard taken at the same time-he was on Hardee's staff; and a captain or a major on Governor Harris' staff, and I think three other commissioned officers. I think there were six taken in all. They were brought to my headquarters at night at Horse Well. We were just up from the supper table, and I inquired if they would take supper, and they said they would. They complained a good deal of fatigue, and I gave them some Bourbon and supper, and sent them under escort to General Buell's headquarters. I went to bed, and some time afterward these men were sent back to our picket lines, and I received a note at that time from Colonel Fry, chief of staff to General Buell, saying that I must send no more prisoners to headquarters, but to have them paroled, and that it was much to be regretted that those prisoners were allowed to come into the lines or to go to General Buell's headquarters, and that prisoners must not be sent there any more, and that I must send those prisoners out of the lines before day. This I endeavored to do, directing the officer in command of them, a major, I think, of the Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, to parole them. He was an intelligent gentleman, and told ne that he understood it and would do it. They were accordingly taken away under escort, and sent away as ordered, and that the last I saw of them. I sent no more prisoners to General Buell's headquarter. This is the substance of the order as I now recollect it, but I am not aware that I have thought of the circumstance since it occurred.