and to endeavor to break up the chain of communication between the disaffected by private express. As to my action under this ordered I refer to my report dated the - instant.

On my return to Fredericksburg I found beyond doubt that the few citizens of the place who were friendly to this Government did not possess moral courage enough to give information to the provost-marshal of the sayings and doings of those who are unfriendly, and upon consultation with Lieutenant Sweet I determined to summon them to meet him and myself. They obeyed the order and made affidavits in regard to certain citizens of the county, viz: Sheriff Branbach, Captain Keuchler (State troops), F. W. Dobbler, a ; grocery keeper, and Mr. F. Lochte, merchant. The affidavits made were sufficient basis on which to warrant the arrest of these men. I detached parties for this purpose and succeeded in arresting Mr. Dobbler. the others had all left the town. Branbach was afterwards arrested in Austin by Corporal Newton, of my company, and Mr. Lochte at Fredericksburg by Lieutenant Lilly, when he thought my company sufficiently distant to insure his safety. Captain Keuchler I did not succeed in arresting. He was the only one of the four who had not taken the oath of allegiance. These men are all inimical to our country and possess a vast amount of influence among the laboring and agricultural classes. Lochte, Dobbler and Branbach are now in the guard-house at San Antonio and their absence from Gillespie County will tend more to make the people of that county united in favor of our Government than anything else.

In connection with this subject I may be allowed to suggest that steps should be taken to arrest Captain Keuchler. He is a man of great influence; a German enthusiast in politics and a dangerous man in the community.

In Kerr County there are a few men who are bitterly opposed to our Government. These men are headed by an old man by the name of Nelson. I took care that he and his party should be notified in good time to report to the provost-marshal. this they failed to do and Nelson sent me a defiant message. I then sent a detachment of State troops kindly placed at my disposal to arrest him, but he had taken to the cedar brakes and escaped.

The most of the inhabitants of that county are frontiersmen. Some of them, if not all, renegades from justice from other States, and men who will not fail to injure a political or personal enemy whenever an opportunity offers. A party of them burned the entire fences of an old man because his sons had gone to the war and because he was a good Southerner.

On the 11th instant I moved my company from Gillespie County to Blanco County and declared a martial law in existence there. Here I found the great majority of the people friendly, enthusiastically so, to the Confederate States Government. I ascertained, however, that there exists a small clique who are bitterly apposed to our cause in the eastern part of the county bordering on Travis. The names of the leaders of this party are Prescott, King, Howell, and two brothers, or father and son, by the name of Snow. Information reached me which led to the conviction that these men, or a majority of them, with some of the rabble, had gone to Fredericksburg armed and equipped to endeavor to raise a party to fight my command, but on arriving at Fredericksburg they found that they could do nothing so returned home, and through one of their understrappers, a man buy the name of Eaton, endeavored to create a feeling in the community against my company by manufacturing and circulating the basest falsehoods in regard to it. This Eaton acknowl-