irst greatly at a loss. For many years I had had in my possession two
very important documents, the last memorial of 1878 and the report of
the Military Committee thereon under General Bragg in 1881. With these
two in my hand I proceeded to consult the Descriptive Catalogue of the
Congressional Library. To my surprise, I found that these two very
important documents had been omitted from the index. Calling attention
to the fact, we looked them up in the body of the volume and Mr.
Spofford immediately added them in pencil together with the other
important documents, in Miss Carroll's favor, which had also been
omitted. When I made my way to the Senate document room I found that
this important Miss. Doc. 58 had been omitted there also, having been
set down under another name. Looking it up in the volume of
Miscellaneous Documents I again obtained the admission by Mr. Amzi
Smith. In the list at the Secretaries office Miss. Doc. 58 was also
omitted together with the last report by a Military Committee, under
General Bragg, endorsing the claim in the most thorough going way. The
index ending with an intermediate report mistakenly designated as
_adverse_, though the previous reports were not thus heralded as
favorable.

After the first report, as made by Senator Howard and the repeated
endorsements made by Wilson and Williams of succeeding Congresses,
these two documents are by far the most important and interesting.

The memorial of '78, containing additional evidence explaining some
things, otherwise unaccountable, and making some very singular
revelations. It is a mine of wealth for the future historian. At the
Secretary's office I showed the documents and stated that their
exclusion must have been unfavorable to the presentation of the case.
I was not equally fortunate in obtaining their immediate admission,
but trust the mistake has since been rectified.

The report marked as "adverse" would be more truly described as
"admission of the incontestable nature of the evidence in support of
the claim," admitting the services in every particular and being
"adverse" only to award involving national recognition.

At the Secretary's office I obtained permission to see the file of the
41st Congress, 2d. session. There I saw the first short memorial with
the plan of campaign attached as described by Thomas Scott. Then my
investigations were temporarily ended by the outside of a document
being shown me stating that the papers ha