Bill:
Here is one lead for you. I found this letter at the Library of Congress while doing work on A.W. Reynolds. It seems to me, if memory serves, that it is Reynolds' response to the allegations made by the Tenn colonels of his brigade.
[December 22, 1863]
I have the honor to return the enclosed. [Note: The petition is not in W.H. Claiborne papers]. The object of the petitioners is too apparent not to be observed by the Hon. Sec. of War. As to the charges insinuated, I prefer to leave the decision as to their truth or falsity to my superiors and those more intimately associated with me than to a clique of artful, designing and inefficient Colonels ever ready to grovel in the filthy mazes of Political intrigue and corruption for their own personal advancement, and anxious to make any representation which will free themselves from further restraint and military discipline.
The endorsement of Brig. Genl. Vaughan is as comtemptible as it is gratuitous, and only exhibits the degrading depth to which aspiring mediocrity and designing ambition may sometimes lead.
Very respectfully
Your obt svt
[Alexander W. Reynolds]
Decbr 22nd/64 [1863]
Copy of endorsement on letter of Cols of Gen. R's [A.W. Reynolds's] old Tenn. Brigade to Sec. of War, asking that Gen. R. be assigned to some other Brigade and one of the Tenn. Cols. be apt in his stead. Written to Sec. of War previous to Gen'l R's promotion to Brig. (or rather before the Cols heard of it) and his assignment to his present Brigade. As a matter of course the letter ____ still _____.
[Willis H. Claiborne]
Source: Letters and papers accompanying the "Private Diary, Capt. W.H Claiborne, Reynolds Brigade, Stevensons Division, Army of Tennessee," 23 March to 7 May 1864, in John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Typescript by John D. Chapla, October 1998.