BALTIMORE, MD., December 15, 1864.

Colonel ROOT,

Commanding Officer, Annapolis, Md.:

One company of the Ninety-first New York is wanted here. Which one can you spare best? State its strength. You must try and get on with the troops you will still have and such provisional troops as you can raise. Reply at once.

SAML. B. LAWRENCE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

OFFICE OF ACTG. ASST. PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

WESTERN DIVISION OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Harrisburg, December 15, 1864.

Brigadier General JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that, after many disheartening delays arising from the inability of the commanding general of the department to furnish troops, I have, on the 7th instant, sent three companies of the Sixteenth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, under Major Geabel, to Philipshburg, in Center County, with full instructions to operate against the deserters, delinquent drafted men, and disloyal citizens of Clearfield County. Major-General Cadwalader, commanding department, has caused my requisitions of all kinds to be promptly filled. Having no cavalry to spare he has furnished me with thirty horses and equipments, enabling me to mount that number of men, from whom, as there are many cavalry soldiers in the Sixteenth, I expect good service. It gives me great satisfaction to report further that on the night of the 13th instant Captain Southworth, commanding Company C, Sixteenth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, while en route to Osceola, surprised and surrounded a house in which was a gang of nineteen desperadoes (mostly deserters), and after a short conflict killed the leader, the notorious Tom Adams, and captured the entire gang (eighteen prisoners). I regret to inform you that Private Cooper, of Company C, Sixteenth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, was killed during the fight by a shot from an upper window of the house. Private Cooper formerly belonged to the Sixth New Hampshire. Another company Veteran Reserve Corps will leave for Clearfield County within a very few days. I have made such arrangements as I feel confident will insure the complete dispersion, if not the capture, of al the bands which, protected by the nature of the country, have so long been a terror and disgrace to that section of the State.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

RICHARD I. DODGE,

Major Twelfth Infantry, Actg. Assistant Provost-Marshal-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, December 15, 1864.

Major General JOHN A. DIX,

Commanding the Department of the East, New York:

GENERAL: Your General Orders, No. 97, telegraphed to this Department, has been submitted to the President, who directed me to inform you that he approves prompt and vigilant action, within proper limits, to protect your department and its inhabitants against hostile aggression; and that, in view of the recent action by a local British tribunal