of Major Myers, General McDowell's chief quartermaster, as to what should be done in the case. He directed me to continue employing them as drivers, and gave them and order setting forth the rates of pay which they were to receive. I am quite sure that the lowest price was one ration and 25 cents per day, and the highest one ration and 40 cents. Some time I think in July-I'm not sure as to the date-I made formal application to be allowed to employ negroes as drivers of battery wagons and forges of the batteries. The application went up to General McDowell through the usual channels, and order was received from him giving permission to so employ negroes. I recollect also that all the negroes coming to Belle Plain were employed by Quartermaster Ross in various ways-in unloading subsistence and moving stores.

Question by General McDOWELL. What was the condition of General McDowell's command as to discipline and efficiency? How did it compare with other commands that have come under your observation?

Answer. Its discipline and deficiency compared very favorably with any troops I have seen, surpassing in almost every respect the troops that joined his command while at Fredericksburg. I mean General Shields' division. I remember that when General Shields' troops encamped beside my own encampment they immediately began to destroy and burn up the fences, cut down shade trees, and in other ways utterly disregarding the orders relative to the preservation of property, and I know that previous to their arrival such acts were not committed by the troops encamped in the vicinity of my own battery.

A letter was submitted to the court signed R. D. Goodwin, of this date, requesting that General McDowell be permitted to prove all or any charges against the writer, giving him the right to defend himself, which letter was read, as follows:

WASHINGTON, D. C., December 6, 1862.

May it please this honorable court:

Inasmuch as a letter of impeachment (by way of protest) was read to the court yesterday from General McDowell, I beg that the general be permitted to prove all of any charges against me, giving me the right to defend myself.

I here emphatically deny that I ever was in prison for any crime or that I ever tried to defraud the Government; but I cannot deny that the Government has defrauded me. I believe as far as I stated in my New York letter of General McDowell I have sustained my position before this court. But drunkenness in our nation may be considered no crime. This nation has been on a drunken frolic for years, during which she has been eating up nigglers, body and soul, and drinking the heart's blood of the poor white man, whilst she hunted down and manured her soil with the flash and blood of the red man. But now the "doctor" has given her an emetic, from which she is suffering. Her brain is maddened and her blood is at fever heat. She has delirium tremens, and is now tearing the flesh off her own bones, premeditating self-destruction. The head is deranged. I mean the Cabinet is not a unit; the Congress is divided, and the heads of our Army are distracted, not knowing what to do or how to do it. But or Great Father will bring her to know herself. He will give her a cathartic and will purge her of all her dross and filth, after which she will became cool and collected, when she will again return to her senses, and be found clothed and sitting in her right mind once more.

I am the friend of God and humanity, and shall condemn wickedness wherever I see it.

Yours, for truth,

R. D. GOODWIN.

The court decided that in the examination before them such an inquiry would be irrelevant and could not be permitted.

The our adjourned to meet on Monday, December 8, 1862, at 11 o'clock a. m.

FIFTEENTH DAY.

COURT-ROOM, 467 SOUTH FOURTEENTH STREET, Washington, D. C., December 8, 1862.

The court met pursuant to adjournment. Present, * * *

Major DAVIS TILLSON, Maine Artillery, the witness under examination.

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6 R R-VOL XII