"More than twelve months have elapsed since we were called upon to avenge the injured right of our country. We obeyed the call. In the midst of hardships, which none but those to whom liberty is dear could have borne without a murmur, we descended the Mississippi. It was believed our services were wanted in the prosecution of the just war in which our country was engaged, and we were prepared to render them. But though we were disappointed in our expectations we established for Tennessee a name which will long do her honor. At length we received a letter from the Secretary of War directing our dismission. You will recollect the circumstances of wretchedness in which this order was calculated to place us. By it we were deprived of every article of public property; no provision was made for the payment of our troops or their subsistence on their return march; while many of our sick, unable to help themselves, must have perished. Against the opinion of many I marched them back to their homes before I dismissed them. Your regiment, at its own request, was dismissed at Columbia. This was accompanied with a certificate to each man, expressing the acts under which he had been enrolled and the length of the tour he had performed. This it is which is now attempted to be construed 'a final discharge.' But surely it cannot be forgotten by any officer or soldier how sacredly they pledged themselves, before they were dismissed or received that certificate, cheerfully to obey the voice of their country, if it should re-summon them into service; neither can it be forgotten, I dare hope, for what purpose that certificate was given; it was to secure, if possible, to those brave men, who had shown such readiness to serve their country, certain extra emoluments, specified in the seventh section of the act under which they had engaged, in the event they were not recalled into service for the residue of their term. "Is it true, then, that my solicitude for the interest of the volunteers is to be made by them a pretext for disgracing a name which they have rendered illustrious? Is a certificate, designed solely for their benefit, to become the rallying word for mutiny? Strange perversion of feeling and of reasoning! Have I really any power to discharge men whose term of service has not expired? If I were weak or wicked enough to attempt the exercise of such a power, does any one believe the soldier would be thereby exonerated from the obligation he has voluntarily taken upon himself to his government? I should become a traitor to the important concern which has been intrusted to my management, while the soldier who had been deceived by a false hope of liberation would be still liable to redeem his pledge. I should disgrace myself without benefiting you.