on the James river are included in the estimate of his strength." Let us see how this is. Now, Mr. Stanton shows that there was in the "Department of West Virginia," to which the Valley of the Shenandoah belonged, an available force present for duty, on the 1st of May, 1864, of 30,782, and in the "Department of Virginia and North Carolina," from which the Army of the James came, an available force for duty of 59,139; and no part of the "Army of the Potomac" or of the "Ninth Army Corps" was in either department.
In General Grant's report, dated the 22d of July, 1865—a copy of which I am sorry I have not in a form to send you, but which is to be found in the official documents printed at large in book form by the 39th Congress he gives a letter from himself to Major-General Butler, dated the 2d of April, 1864, and containing instructions for the approaching campaign, in which he says:
"You will collect all the forces from your command that can be spared from garrison duty—I should say not less than twenty thousand effective men—to operate on the north side of James river, Richmond being your objective point. To the force you already have will be added about ten thousand men from South Carolina, under Major-General Gilmore, who will command them in person. Major-General W. F. Smith is ordered to report to you, to command the troops sent into the field from your own department." These troops, under Smith and Gilmore, afterwards constituted the "Army of the James," under Butler. Grant also says in the same report:
"A very considerable force under command of Major-General Sigel was so held for the protection of West Virginia, and the frontiers of Maryland and Pennsylvania. * * *
"General Sigel was therefore directed to organize all his available force into two expeditions, to move from Beverly and Charleston, under command of Generals Ord and Crook, against the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. Subsequently, General Ord having been relieved at his own request, General Sigel was instructed, at his own suggestion, to give up the expedition by Beverly, and to form two columns, one under General Crook, on the Kanawha, numbering about ten thousand men, and one on the Shenandoah, numbering about seven thousand men."
He further says:
"Owing to the weather and bad condition of the roads, operations were delayed until the 1st of May, when, everything being in readi-
