ubted whether General Forrest was
present, and had the impression that it was a ruse to induce the
surrender of the fort. At the second meeting of the flag of
truce, General Forrest announced himself as being General
Forrest; but the officers who accompanied the flag, being
unacquainted with the General, doubted his word, and it was the
opinion of the garrison, at the time of the assault, that General
Forrest was not in the vicinity of the fort. The commanding
officer refused to surrender. When the final assault was made, I
was captured at my post, inside the works, and have been treated
as a prisoner of war.

JOHN T. YOUNG,
_Captain, Twenty-fourth Missouri Volunteers_.

F. W. UNDERHILL, _First Lieutenant, Cavalry_.

GENERAL WASHBURN TO GENERAL LEE.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF WEST TENNESSEE, }
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, July 3, 1864. }

Lieutenant-General S. D. LEE, _Commanding Department Alabama,
Mississippi and East Louisiana, C. S. A., Meridian, Miss.:_

GENERAL: Your letter of the twenty-eighth ult., in reply to mine
of the seventeenth ult., is received.

The discourtesy which you profess to discover in my letter I
utterly disclaim. Having already discussed at length, in a
correspondence with Major-General Forrest, the Fort Pillow
massacre, as well as the policy to be pursued in regard to
colored troops, I do not regard it necessary to say more on those
subjects. As you state that you fully approve of the letter sent
by General Forrest to me, in answer to mine of the seventeenth
ult., I am forced to presume that you fully approve of his action
at Fort Pillow.

Your arguments in support of that action confirm such
presumption. You state that the "version given by me and my
government is not true, and not sustained by the facts to the
extent I indicate." You furnish a statement of a certain Captain
Young, who was captured at Fort Pillow, and is now a prisoner in
your hands. How far the statement of a prisoner under duress and
in the position of Captain Young should go to disprove the sworn
testimony of the hundred eye-witnesses who had ample opportunity
of seeing and knowing, I am willing that others shall judge.

In relying, as you do, upon this certifica