July 5, 1863

July 5, 1863

Camp on Caney Creek,

July 5, 1863.

To his Excellency the President:

Your dispatch of June 30th received. I considered my assignment to the immediate command in Mississippi as giving me a new position, and limiting my authority to this department. The orders of the War Department transferring three separate bodies of troops from General Bragg's army to this, two of them without my knowledge, and all of them without consulting me, would have convinced me, had I doubted. These orders of the War Department expressed its judgment of the number of troops to be transferred from Tennessee. I could no more control this judgment by increasing the number, than by forbidding the transfers. I regret very much that an impression which seemed to me to be natural, should be regarded by you as a "strange error."

J. E. Johnston.