Jones informed me that one of his men, just returned form furlough, had been offered a horse and equipments as an inducement to join a company of cavalry now being raised by a Captain Kendrick, to be attacked to the command of Colonel or Major Owens [Bowen], in General Sam. Jones' department. The man refused, but others have been seduced by like offers, and General Jones informs me that he has ordered charges to be preferred against Captain K.

Instances of a similar kind could be multiplied indefinitely. The men thus seduced, or who enlist in other commands voluntarily, are lost to the Army. Their own fear of the consequences of their crime, and the apprehension of those who enlist them of being held responsible, makes it almost impossible to recover the, and when brought back it is to receive that punishment without which all discipline is at an end. The dissatisfaction created among those who remain is an evil of no less consequence than the actual loss of men. I regret extremely that I have failed to impress the Department with the magnitude of this evil, as it has been made painfully apparent to my own mind.

I am persuaded that if the system of giving these permissions to raise companies continues as it now exists my efforts to preserve and improve the discipline and efficiency of the army must be unavailing. I regard to whole system as an unmixed evil. No good has resulted from it at all commensurate with its bad effects. I would prefer to see it suppressed entirely, at the expense of losing the men who are rightfully brought into service by it, rather than lose the larger number that it draws from the army or renders unfit for a proper discharge of duty. It must be continued, I strongly advise that all such grants of authority be coupled with the condition that if any man already in service be found in the new command the commissions of all the officers of the latter shall be annulled and themselves put as privates in the organization to which such man may belong, irrespective of their alleged ignorance that the man could not properly be enlisted by them. It is by this plea that they escape responsibility for conduct, and no measure less stringent will force them to abstain form improper measures to procure recruits, or cause them to give the subject the necessary attention to prevent their agents from doing so. I also advise that the same penalties be attacked to all officers in whose commands such men now may be who can be proved to have thaw them or allowed them to enlist with knowledge that they were already in service, or who shall not return or account satisfactorily for them within a certain time after a demand shall be made for them.

In the present instance I earnestly request that the authority given to Lieutenant Carter be revoked. It takes 3 men from this army, where they contradict the invariable experience of such efforts.

So strong is may conviction on this subject that I beg, if no other means can be found to supply General Jones with a battery of horse artillery, and he is in actual want of one, that a company be taken from the artillery of this army for his use. I shall then at least know to what extent it has been weakened, and nothing will have been done to encourage dissatisfaction and desertion.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General.

71 R R-VOL XXXIII