Question. At what point of his march do you consider General Bragg put on the defensive in the campaign in Kentucky?

I do not know but what he may have been considered to be on the defensive the whole while; yet his demonstration were unquestionably offensive at Munfordville and threateningly so at Bardstown. The other forces, under Smith, were part of Bragg's army and were on the offensive from the time they entered the State, and were continually so advancing toward Cincinnati, having taken Lexington, marched upon the capital of the State and taken that also, marched to Shelbyville, to within 32 miles of Louisville, and a portion of them advanced to Floyd's Fork, within 16 or 17 miles of Louisville. Bragg did not advance farther toward Louisville than Bardstown with the main body of his army; some of them may have advanced as far as Salt River, which is within 20 miles of Louisville. They took the defensive then, I think, and maintained it for some time, falling back and massing on Chaplin River, in Mercer and Boyle Counties. They waited there the advance of General Buell's army. I suppose they may be said to have been on the defensive from the time General Buell reached Elizabethtown. Certainly their offensive demonstrations were less, if they did not cease, about that time; I mean that they fell back from the advanced positions near Louisville and Cincinnati and concentrated their forces. They were not offensive in their demonstrations except in the sense they seemed determined to give battle. I never excepted them to retreat from the State without a battle. I think they were made to retreat by the expeditiousness with which the army moved against them and for other reasons for other reasons before given.

Question. Do you consider General Buell's army to have been acting on the offensive or defensive from the time Bragg crossed the Tennessee River until the battle of Perryville?

In answer to a question from Mr. Lincoln by telegraph as to where Bragg was, I stated to him that he was in Tennessee, moving northward on a line parallel with the line on which General Buell was moving and east of General Buell, but how far from that line I did not know; but I thought he was harassing or would harass General Buell in his retrograde movement, or that he would diverge, crossing the Cumberland east of Nashville, at Carthage or Gainesborough or Burkesville and enter Kentucky, and I was fearful would penetrate the State before General Buell could possibly reach it. I believed then that General Buell was on the defensive, and I suppose that he continued so up to the point at which he could have received support from the forces at Louisville or, say, Elizabethtown. Which army was in point of fact on the defensive I cannot state, except as to the opinion I have formed from the movements of the armies and the results of those movements.

By the PRESIDENT.

Question. You spoke yesterday about the forces under Marshall and Stevenson having joined Kirby Smith; would you have us infer that they were with Kirby Smith when he made a junction with Bragg?

My belief is, from the information I have, that Stevenson moved to Danville and not to Lexington, and that he formed a junction with Bragg before Kirby Smith did. Marshall came to Lexington, and was in camp for some days in the immediate vicinity of Harrodsburg with his forces and before a portion of Kirby Smith's forces had crossed the Kentucky River. I do not believe that Marshall's forces had formed a junction until Kirby Smith came up that side of the river; they were resting back of Harrodsburg at the time of the battle. I think Stevenson's forces marched down the road toward Frankfort as far as Lawrenceburg and probably farther. I think they fell back in the direction of Harrodsburg and formed a junction when General Sill moved in that direction.

Question. You have a good knowledge of the country, have you not?

Yes, sir; I have in the immediate vicinity all my life.

Question. In your opinion would it form much of at obstruction in the way of General Buell's advance if he had intended to make an attack upon the other side of that river or to get into the way of Bragg's retreat from Camp Dick Robinson southwest?

Dick's River is very much like the Kentucky River in its banks and cliffs; they are precipitous, perpendicular cliffs, one or two hundred feet. There are a number of places, as on the Kentucky River, where are crossings more or less eligible-at every crossing of turnpike or country roads or neighborhood roads. Those cliffs as