a sense of the responsibilities under which they rest to Your Excellency and to the Republic, render this proceeding, in their judgment, a matter of solemn duty, from which, as patriots, they cannot shrink.” The petition closed with a strong affirmation of their disbelief in the possibility of success under the existing command. The annals of modern warfare will probably be searched in vain for a counterpart to this extraordinary performance in the face of the enemy. Lieutenant-General Polk had anticipated it by a letter of his own to the same effect, to President Davis, dated two days before he was relieved from command, by one of the same date and of a like tenor to General R. E. Lee, and by another to the President, bearing the date of October 6, in which he goes so far as to say:
General Bragg . . . allowed the whole of the fruits of this great victory to pass from him by the most criminal negligence, or, rather, incapacity, for there are positions in which weakness is wickedness. If there be a man in the public service who should be held to a more rigid accountability for failures, and upon the largest scale, than another, that man is General Bragg, and I shall be happy to go before a court of inquiry on charges preferred against me by General Bragg, that I may have the opportunity not only of vindicating my own conduct, but of establishing the truth and justice of what I have written of his lack of capacity as a commanding general.
Longstreet's letter to the Secretary of War had effect. The latter wired to General Bragg that his apparent inaction since Chickamauga was causing anxiety, and called for an explanation. The General sent a full reply, setting forth that to attack the entrenched enemy would be suicidal, and that he was making every effort to accumulate sufficient supplies for a turning movement across the Tennessee River. But the demonstrations of the other generals decided the rebel President to make a personal at-
