so directly concerned, and all the members of which are inferior to me in grade, is entirely of his own selection, and the judge-advocate of it his own military secretary. I shrink from no legitimate inquiry into any official conduct of mine, as involved in the particular matter in question, or in any other performance of my duty ; but I respectfully demand as a right that my reputation and conduct shall not be called in question, or decided upon by surprise or indirection . I ask, Mr. President, that you will order a court of inquiry, which shall be, as to me and my rights, regular in its institution and fair in the opportunities afforced me to meet anything which it may be pretended implicates me unfavorably in any action attending the evacuation of Winchester . 1O have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBT. C. SCHENCK,

Major-General, U. S. Volunteers. -

[SEPTEMBER 7, 1863 .]

Major-General Schenck then proposed to the court that Major-General Hooker, being in the city, should be summoned as a witness stating that he was informed that there could be proven, and he proposed to have proven, among other facts, by General Hooker this: That he, then being in command of the Army of the Potomac, did receive a telegram from General Pleasonton, informing him that it was reported that two corps of Lee's army-Longstreet's and Ewell's -had marched through Culpeper, by way of Sperville, to the Shenandoah Valley, and that this telegram like others, was received by military telegraph in the usual way through the War Department, where such telegraphic, information was accustomed to be taken down as it passed, for the information of the Secretary of War and of the General-in-Chief. ; and that this was on the 12th day of June, 1863 .

ROBT. C. SCHENCK.

[Indorsemment.]

SEPTEMBER 7, 1863.

The court will place upon its record the telegram alluded to (if any such was transmitted), for which purpose it will procure it from the files of the War Department or from those of the headquarters of the army. In either event, the court will feel bound to admit that this telegram came regularly through the channels, unless positive information should accompany it amounting to proof that this one formed an exception in the ordinary transmission of such dispatches.

ROBERT N. SCOTT,

Captain Fourth U. S. Infantry, Judge- Advocate. -

WARRENTON JUNCTION, June 12, 1863-7 p. m.

General S. WILLIAMS,

Assistant Adjutant- General:

A colored boy captured on the 9th states that Ewell's corps passed through Culpeper on Monday last, on their way to the Valley, and