General Smith, by his military writings, has not only refuted the unjust criticisms of General Butler's Book, but he has modestly and conclusively set forth his own military services during the various campaigns in which he took part. He points out with pardonable pride the friendship which sprang up during the Chattanooga campaign, between himself and General Grant. He makes it clear that his failure to capture Petersburg was due to a number of causes more or less potential and altogether beyond his control. First among them was the physical exhaustion of himself and his troops; second, an order which was sent to him through the signal corps from General Butler, who was all day June 15 at Point Lookout Signal Station, to stay his advance; and, third, the failure of General Hancock, who was with the Second Corps within supporting distance, to take up the movement and give the finishing stroke to the day's work. To these should be added the defective staff arrangements by which the various forces in the field of operations were controlled, the inadequate strength of Smith's command, which was inexcusable where such a vast force was within call, the lack of engineer officers and of exact information as to the character of the ground over which the troops were compelled to operate, and the total absence of proper support and co-operation on the part of the Army of the Potomac. Above all, it should be kept in mind that the enemy held the defensive and had interior lines upon which he could throw his troops from point to point on his threatened front, with greater celerity than the attacking force could be concentrated by outside lines and across wide rivers against him. When Smith began his movement against Petersburg, which was to be in the nature of a surprise, the greater part of Grant's army was still north of the James River, and both Meade and Hancock allege that they were not notified that a new effort was to be made to capture Petersburg by Smith alone, after Butler had tried and failed with his whole army to isolate and cut it off from Richmond by the movement to Bermuda Hundred. Both of these able officers declare that if they had known in time that Petersburg was to have been captured, Petersburg would have been captured. This simple statement, without reference to its truth, which has never been questioned, is conclusive evidence that the staff arrangements and the organization of the machinery of command were fatally defective, for had it been otherwise, every officer who could have been called upon to take part in the movement, or could have been expected to co-operate with it, would have been so clearly instructed as to make his duty entirely plain.