The time of 7.30, put in the past tense, was an after-thought for the Court of Inquiry. Mr. Armstrong, rode out two horses in seeking Col. Peacock, and delivered that paper, he will swear if required, near Black Creek by 8.30. He is positive it was delivered within the hour from the time of his getting it. From whom Booker got paper is in itself immaterial. He went to the field in command of a brigade, without a map, without a pencil, without a scrap of paper. Says Major Denison, apologetically, p. 39: “Lt.-Col. Booker was on this eventful morning, for the first time in his life in command of a brigade.... During his whole military career he had never commanded a brigade of infantry, even at a review, and was sent to the front merely as a commanding officer of his regiment, the 13th and not in any other capacity. Chance threw him into the position of a brigadier-general on the morning of a battle, without any mounted staff, without any mounted orderlies, without any artillery, or cavalry, and without a mounted officer in the field but himself. Such was the position in which he found himself when forming up his command at the village of Ridgeway after taking them off the cars.” Chance may have made that the morning of battle, but chance did not find him in command of the brigade. On the cars all the way from Hamilton he had boasted of his seniority to every other Lt.-Col. of Volunteers likely to come in rivalry with him, and told in grand tones that within a few days he expected to command a force of at least 3,000 men. “And,” say the companions of his journey, “he talked as if he were competent to command fifty thousand men.” “Without a mounted officer in the field but himself!” By what chance, since chance ruled the day, was he himself mounted? At Hamilton before starting, an officer inquired “Are you not to be mounted colonel? Why don’t you take your horse?” His reply was to poke the officer in the side with his fingers, and say: “Skinner! there is Skinner with his horse; I’ll dismount him.” So, that had Lt.-Col. Booker supplied himself with a charger for the field, he would have had at least one mounted officer besides himself. He says to the Court of Inquiry, and Major Denison says; that finding himself in command of the brigade, he handed over the command of the 13th battalion to Major Skinner. Not true. He arranged that Major Gilmore should handle the Q. O. and York Rifles, and that he would take the rest. The only words approaching to an order given to Major Skinner on that day were, to proceed to the front with the right wing of the battalion, Major Cattley having charge of the left wing as supports. Had Major Skinner been placed in command of the battalion, Major Cattley would have gone with the right wing.