Today in History:

144 Series I Volume XII-I Serial 15 - Second Manassas Part I

Page 144 OPERATIONS IN N. VA., W. VA., AND MD. Chapter XXIV.

Question by General MCDOWELL. Does the witness wish to be understood as implying it was not the object of the other commanders to march against the enemy?

Answer. I did not say anything about that, because I do not know it. I suppose it was so.

Question by General MCDOWELL. You state with reference to your being under the command of General McDowell that you "did not apply to General Pope for orders when you sent your adjutant to see him at Manassas, but that General Pope gave your orders on your proposal." Did you or did you not report to General McDowell the change in your march which those orders you received from General Pope made?

Answer. I object to this question, because it is said here that you "did not apply to General Pope for orders when you sent your adjutant to see him at Manassas, but that General Pope gave your orders on your own proposal." He did not give me orders on my proposal; he only permitted me to march by New Market in compliance with his order.

Question by the COURT. Does the witness mean to object to the question as one which does not recite the evidence given by him?

Answer. It does not.

The recorder was directed to refer to the record and read extracts from pages 302 and 303.

Question by the COURT. Is the ground of objection by the witness understood?

Answer. I object to this, that General Pope gave me orders on my proposal, because I received the orders from him to march to Centreville, which proposition I did not make. I believe I sent to General McDowell whilst we were on the march, and as soon as we had arrived near New Market and became engaged with the enemy. I know that the conversation took place between an officer of General King's division and one of my staff officers, but I do not know whether this is the same officer back to him asking permit to march by New Market instead of by Manassas. I refer to my official report, which I think will give the circumstance as it was, and I do not does it a point whether I proposed to General Pope first and received then the order or that I had received first the order then marched to New Market.

Question by General MCDOWELL. Was your report, proposition, or application to General Pope, which you sent your adjutant to make, a verbal one to be made by himself, or was he the bearer of a written dispatch, in which you yourself made direct to General Pope the proposition you have referred to? Was General Pope's order verbal or written?

Answer. I am almost certain that the order of General Pope was verbal I cannot say. Captain Meysenberg, my adjutant-general, was the officer whom I had sent to General Pope and who had brought me the reply.

Question by General MCDOWELL. Does or does not the witness remember that General McDowell informed him at Buckland Mills that the cavalry he had sent out under Buford had caused Longstreet to deploy his army between Salem and White Plains, thus delaying his march?

Answer. I do not remember that.

Question by General MCDOWELL. Did not General McDowell inform you in writing of the troops he was marching to Buckland Mills?

Answer. It may be so. I am not certain of it.

Question by General MCDOWELL. After you left Gainesville, on the


Page 144 OPERATIONS IN N. VA., W. VA., AND MD. Chapter XXIV.