In this letter to Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont, W. R. Cobb asks if President Grant intends to retain William Spence as the Martial of Cobb's district in Tennessee. Cobb encloses a clipping from the Nashville American (which he feels is hostile to him and friendly to Spence) stating that Grant has dismissed all of the charges that Cobb had brought against Spence and gone so far as to say that he knew no such man as W. R. Cobb. Should Spence not be removed, Cobb believes that he will not be able to start his first class daily paper nor organize a Republican canvass for the next summer.