Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1862-08-21

I - - 80 NA1@A AAA-@La A4&N IN [1~AAI
your papers, and others regularly, and by tina
means are kept constantly advised of our opera
tions. As long as you confined yourselves Il
personal abuse, and detTacti9n, though false AM
malignant, (see your article on the relief ofGen
Besuregsrd by Gen. Bragg, charging collisions
between the letter, and the War Department,
Gen. Bragg cared nothing for it. But when you
ssssil our cause, and expose our plans to tbs
enemy, it becomes his duty to interfere ant
you may rest assured be will do it, regardless Of
the support you have in the Cabinet.
an very respectfully, your obedient serv't,
JAS. L. SLAUGHTER.
Brig. and A. A. Inspector Gen.
ADVERTISER OFFICE,
MONTGOMERY, August II, 1862.
General B axton Bragg;
DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 6th, through
BrigadieT-G General Slaughter, has been received
Allow ne to say that the arrest of cur CORE
spondent, on p~retense Of giving information to
the enemy, can only be regarded by all free
thinking men as another exhibition Of that petty
tyranny and vindictiveness for which you have
gained an Unenviable notoriety. No one doubts
the correctness of the rule Of the army not to
give information to the enemy, but all will qUes-
ton its application to this case. The necessary
inference from your words is that Wallace
Screws is a spy, and that the people in the heart
of the South, for whose information he WAS
writing, are enemies to the country. The public
will spurn both Of these imputations as unworthy
of the position you occupy and the struggle ia
which we are engaged. The otfense of our cor
respondent, if ofense it may be called, in repeat
ing vague and uncertain reports about the move
ments of your troops, is not so grave an offense
as that previously committed by yourself in
authorizing the publication Of a dispatch that
/ your army was on the move. Here is q dispatch
which appeared in our columns July 25ih, by
erder of General Bragg:
MOBILE, July 24-"T There has been unusual
activity st Tupelo within the past few days.
The grand army under command of General
Bragg is on the move, and the loyal people Of
Memphis may soon have occasion to rejoice.
One or more divisions will pass through here in
a day or two en- route east"
l was not in the Office at night when this dis
patch came, or we should not have published it.
Every body l met on the street was surprised
that such a piece Of information should be given
an opportunity to 60 to the enemy. On inquiry,
however, l was informed that the telegraph
operator at this place had at first refused to re-
ceive the dispatch, but was assured from Mobile
1t was by General Brsgg's order. Now 40 i'm
partial man can read that dispatch and then
read the following extract from the letter of our
correspondent, published July 26th, to which
% ~ Aa0DAoAg1A LtA bAAN 6&LNRAAeA hAtnIuh
ascTibiRg more guilt TO you than to him if your
movements were made known
=" It is reported that a portion of Bragg's men
came in today, and that large numbers are on
the way"
Tbs report it should be recollected Is stated
in the middle Of a long letter, where, perhaps,
not one person in a hundrsd would ever see it;
whereas Gen. Bragg's dispatch was published
by itself to the world under the telegraph head
of nearly every city paper in the Confederacy,
where everybody's attention was attracted to it.
We doubt The statement that our papers are re-
ceiyed regularly by the enemy, and if they are,
they derive no information from them of the
movements Of our troops. This, thousands Of
daily readers to this paper can testify to. The
enemy has much more direct and certain means
Of getting information through the so-called de-
seTteTS from the Yankees, allowed to pass through
your lines, than by means Of Southern newspa-
pers. 1t has only been 3 week or ten days since
tour Of these gentry were here watching the
movements Of troops, with transportation tickets
furnished them in Gen. Bragg's army in Missis-
When they got through here they OBJ
aimed passports to other points further east, on
he strength Of Gen. Bragg's transportation
Ought not this sort Of license toward
he most degraded enemies Of the South, make
5en. Bragg a little more lenient to men as patri-
as he is in the service of the country3
ButI turn from this incidental matter to that
portion of the letter which is evidently the
'irHs of the whole production. Before doing SO,
lowever, l beg to say in all candoT and sin
.erity, that personal abuse and detraction,
hough false and malignant" are terms with
which you are more familiar than myself, and 1
m surprised that you should have so far misap- {
them. l return these terms to you, labled {
S your OWN property, to be used with impunity {
S long as you g continue " to be surrounded By {
f
Gen. Bragg knows as well as l do that the I
rticie to which he refers in relation to the relief
f Gen. Beauregard by himself, does him entire
lstice. Il is notorious in the army that his col t
sion with the War Department had become so i
equent previous and subsequent TO the retreat L
CoTinth, that he was ordered to an inferior a
at Vicksburg, which order was pre- r
ented from going into execution by the inter c
renee of Gen BesuTegard, who said General h
could not be spared at that tine, as he q
imself would have to ask for sick leave. This d
a fact which i6hOuld not have adverted to at
time, but for the vulgar terms in which a
en-. Bragg has been pleased to deny it. e
When Gen. Bragg intimates that l have as h
liled our cause and exposed cur plans to the il
lemy, he invents a weak pretext for the exer- Of
Sc OF unwarranted authority. The idea of a re
an who every day deGantly violates the Con 81
am laws u us COuUIY-Dy usurDiup n
g power for the appointment and promotion Of a.
hcer5-by making arbitrary arrests without OF
and inhicting cruel and unusual punish W
ents without trial-the idea of such a man i'm 81
to me q want of fidelity to the cause. and b.
r~estening to assume a censorship over the pub. la
liberties, is supremely f~areical. All l have to or
= to this pretensi0n is, that whenever Cen. fu
-agg gets ready to interfere with me or my pa- in
r for the free criticism Of men or measures. az
III very quickly test the question whether we G.
2 living under a republican government or a De
despotism Gen. Bragg perhaps foryets vi
in the ardor Of his ambition to be made mill, tn
y dictator, he may be I" regardless of tba OF
that the right Of habeas corpus and of trial
jury, still exists in this country. He NAV
agine that be is developing something of Jack wi
nianism by substituting his viii for the regu- of
ions Of the army, but if he viii examine N
3 record he viii fad that jackson disrevarded s..
3 civil authority but once-thst was in q Main on
90 of military necessity, and when the occa- bu
N had passed be quietly gave himself IN. Il OK
,uld be wise for weaker minds not to venture kn
do as q rule what jackson did as an exeep- m.
an
allusion of Gea. Bragg to the Cabinet is Gel
tirely gratuitous and uncalled for, no refer
e having been made to it directly or indirect
in my previous letter. I am not in the habit on
is well known, Of going to the Cabinet or any
er body OF men for my views. But after the col
of i'll temper and defiance which wi
u Bragg has thrown out, the country and the it
~, viii be thankful to him for the informa bic