Moseley to report to General Beauregard for reassignment to the command of the battalion which has for some time been under his charge. I have only waited to collect some facts, which the absence of my office papers, for safe-keeping, placed a little out of reach, concerning the relations of this case, to ask to the questions which it involves General Lee's attention and that of the War Department. From the first it has been apparent that one independent regiment of artillery, whose officers are to be promoted without reference to their relations to others in the midst of a whole series of battalions, all related to each other, and constituting a system for the whole army, was an incongruity sure to lead to difficulty. Hence, when the late lamented Colonel Brown a year ago asked for the promotion of Major Moseley to be lieutenant-colonel, vice the excellent Coleman, my indorsement stated the main facts and disapproved the application on the ground that it interfered with the regular course of promotions in the artillery, through the double claims of seniority and merit. Now that the promotion has been made, to the exclusion of officers who have seen incomparably more service, for we can only have so many officers of a certain grade for so many guns, I beg that the case may be re-examined before another grade is given. The colonelcy of that regiment is now vacant, it must be remembered, if the regiment itself be still alive. As nearly as I have been able to learn the First Regiment Virginia Artillery was organized in the fall of 1861, in the Army of the Peninsula, under General Magruder, and with the sanction of the War Department. Its officers elected were Colonel [afterward General] Randolph, Lieutenant-Colonel Cabell, and Major Brown. When Colonel Randolph was made brigadier-general Lieutenant-Colonel Cabell and Major Brown ascended a grade each, but the majority remained for a season vacant. The companies associated to form this organization were: From Richmond three, viz, Fayette Artillery, Second Howitzers, and Third Howitzers; from Henrico one, Captain Sands', afterward Ritter's; from Albemarle, Southall's, afterward Wyatt's, and five from the Peninsula, viz, Captain William Allen's, Captain Cosnahan's Captain Coke's, Captain Young's, and Captain Richardson's. Of these Captain Allen's was detached within a few months, and placed with another to form a battalion, of which Captain Allen was made major. After the army arrived near Richmond in the spring of 1862 Cosnahan's and Coke's being much reduced, were, by command of Secretary Randolph, combined under Captain Coke. In October, 1862, Coke's and Ritter's companies, being again reduced, were by general orders temporarily distributed among the other companies. They have never been revived. The three Richmond companies, that from Albemarle, and Young's and Richardson's, six in all, are therefore all now remaining. Nor have these companies ever operated together. They were scattered when the nominal regiment was formed and have been arranged according to the needs of the service ever since. The Second and Third Howitzers constituted part of Colonel Brown's, as they now compose part of Lieutenant-Colonel Hardaway's, battalion. The Fayette Artillery has, ever since our battalions were formed, belonged to Dearing's, now Read's, battalion; the Albemarle Artillery to Lieutenant-Colonel Poague's, while Richardson's and Young's remained with Major Moseley, he having been elected major in the summer of 1862, when Lieutenant-Colonel Brown was elected colonel and Major Coleman lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. Richardson's company is now at Chaffin's Bluff, so that Young's is the only one remaining under Major Moseley's command. I respectfully submit that if in view of these facts the First Regiment