given me for my guidance during those operations without implied
criticism of General Thomas; hence it was then thought best to omit
any reference to any such orders or instructions, and to limit the
report to a simple recital of the facts, thus making the report
strictly truthful so far as concerned my own action and that of
the troops under my command, without any reference whatever to my
superior at Nashville, under whose orders I was supposed to be
acting; and that report of December 7 appeared to be entirely
satisfactory to General Thomas in that respect as well as in all
others. But when the time came to make my final report of the
entire campaign, which must go upon the public records as my full
and exact contribution to the history of military operations in
which I had taken an important part, truth and justice to all
required me to make the records complete so far as lay in my power;
and if there was anything in the record, as submitted by me to
General Thomas, to which he took exception, it was as plainly his
duty to truth and justice to place those exceptions also on the
public records. So far from suggesting in my final report any
possible criticism of General Thomas, I put the best possible
construction upon all the despatches I had received from him, by
accepting them together as showing me that his object was "to hold
the enemy in check" until he (Thomas) could concentrate his
reinforcements, and not to fight Hood at Pulaski, as he (Thomas)
had at first ordered. I simply submitted to him the plain record,
with the best possible construction I could put upon it, and that
only so far as it was necessary for me to construe it to give the
general basis of my action. If any official duty remained to be
done in that regard, that duty devolved on General Thomas, not on
me.

In my final report, dated December 31, 1864, I said, as above
indicated, that my instructions from the major-general commanding
were embraced in a telegram to General Stanley (dated November 8),
in which General Thomas said, "Should the enemy overpower them [the
cavalry] and march on Pulaski, you must hold that place," "a copy
of which was furnished with the order to assume command at Pulaski,
and subsequent despatches, explaining that the object was to hold
the enemy in check, should he advance, long enough to enable General
A. J. Smith's corps, then expected from Missouri, to reach Nashville,
other troops in the Department of the Cumb