Again, on June 9, Halleck telegraphed to Stanton:
General Pope estimates rebel loss from casualties, prisoners and desertion at over 20,000, and General Buell at between 20,000 and 30,000. An Englishman employed in the Confederate commissary department says they had 120,000 men in Corinth, and that now they cannot muster more than 80,000.
Some days later, the Northern press published a statement from Beauregard, printed in the Richmond papers, that the dispatch first quoted from Halleck to Stanton “contained almost as many lies as lines,” and this charge is also made in his official report. Stanton having called Halleck's attention to this by wire, the latter replied:
“In accordance with your instructions, I telegraph to you daily what information I receive of events in this department, stating whether official or unofficial, and, if official, giving the authority. In regard to the number of prisoners and arms taken, I telegraphed the exact language of General Pope. If it was erroneous, the responsibility is his, not mine.”
The simple truth was, that Pope's captures of men and arms were only about one-tenth of the number he had reported to Halleck. The whole army was amazed when the newspapers arrived with the correspondence between Stanton and Halleck, and the enthusiastic popular responses it had provoked. I and all knew that a gross deception had been practised. In due time, the Northern press broke out in furious indignation against Pope, who was considered responsible for it. Pope did not defend himself. Singular to relate, it was only in July, 1865, three months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, that Pope addressed a letter to Halleck calling attention to the subject, disclaiming the authorship of the false report, and asking to have his record set right. Halleck excused himself from complying with the request, on the ground that his papers had been boxed up, as he was about to start for California to take
