From the Richmond Dispatch, 7/22/1862, p. 2, c. 1

CAMP 13^th ALABAMA
July 18, 1862.

MESSRS. EDITORS: Dr. Coffin’s last brilliant coup de main unfolds a plan seldom adopted by gentlemen of getting out of an awkward position. Hereafter when one is met by unpleasant facts, which he tries in vain to disprove, he can successfully resort to the Doctor’s distinguished example, viz: assume his accustomed pomposity, affect great indifference towards his adversary, and pronounce the whole affair a batch of falsehoods, without regard to the law and the testimony. It is not my purpose to continue this communication any further, as the charge made in my first card was fully sustained in the second, by the witness called on the stand by the Doctor himself – the Doctor’s own sweeping assertion to the contrary, notwithstanding. In dismissing the Doctor, I must be allowed to remark, that his last card, to say the least of it, is little, mean, and contemptible.

JOHN T. SMITH,
Captain 13^th Alabama.

jy 22 – 1t*

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