Their reply was, "Very well; General Cox thinks he can get along without us, and we will show him.

We will write him down." They left the camp the same evening, and wrote letters to their papers describing the army as demoralized, drunken, and without discipline, in a state of insubordination, and the commander as totally incompetent.

As to the troops, more baseless slander was never uttered.

Their march had been orderly.

No wilful injury had been done to private property, and no case of personal violence to any non-combatant, man or woman, had been even charged.