[Indorsement.]

HDQRS. DETACHMENT NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Near Cedar Creek, Va., October 11, 1864.

Respectfully referred to Brigadier-General Grover, commanding Second Division, for remark, with explanatory letter of Brigadier-General Dwight.

By order of Brevet Major-General Emory:

DUNCAN S. WALKER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Inclosure to indorsement.]

HDQRS. FIRST DIVISION, NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Near Fisher's Hill, Va., October 9, 1864.

Major D. S. WALKER,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I have had two interviews with the brevet major-general commanding the corps upon the subject of my official report of the part taken by this division in the actions and operations of this army on the 19th and 22nd of September, near Winchester, Va., and at this place. In consequence of those interviews, I have the honor to submit the following supplement to that report:

The result of the first interview was that I substituted for a paragraph in my report another paragraph containing a fuller and more detailed statement of the subject-matter of that paragraph. I was glad of the opportunity of so doing, because the brevet major-general commanding considered the matter as personal to himself, and because I am glad to make everything conceding which I consider it my duty to report as plain and distinct and a little liable to misapprehension or misconstruction as possible. I hope, in the more detailed statements which I am about to make on the subjects to which the brevet major-general commanding the corps has seen fit to call my attention, I shall be as satisfactory as he assured me I was in the substitution referred to. I both interviews the brevet major-general commanding insisted on stating that my report criticized the Second Division of this corps, and although he agreed that the conduct of that division was bad enough, yet he third that my criticism, as he was pleased to call it, was, to use his own words, "too highly colored and unwise," and that I had "gone out of my way" to make it. I had hoped that the very distinct disclaimer that I made in our first interview would have convinced the brevet major-general commanding the corps that I had no intention to criticize any one, still less "to go out of my way" to make any statement which I did not consider it my duty to make, in justice to my division and as necessary to a proper understanding of its share int he action and of the character of its operations. But in the second interview the brevet major-general commanding not only reiterated his statement, that I had criticized the Second Division, but thought that I ought to rewrite my report and avoid mentioning the Second Division at all. In advising me very considerately to do this, the brevet major-general commanding told me to consider this advice official if I pleased. My report was written with mature deliberation, with the single purpose of telling the truth and of doing justice to my command. If I had criticized any one I was not aware of it. I meant simply to state facts, and only facts which bore upon the operations of my division. No personal feeling had entered my mind. In the mag-