from further service, and have determined to retain my office so long as I may be of service to our cause.

I remain, faithfully, your friend,

L. POLK,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS,
Greenville, Tenn., December 8, 1861.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General:

SIR: At the date of my last letter a part of the force under my command was engaged in the pursuit of a part of insurgents moving from their camp, in the northern part of Greene, towards Cocke County. As usual, their force was dispersed and only some stragglers could be picked up. Among these prisoners were three who had been of the party that burned the Lick Creek Bridge. They were Henty Fry, Jacob M. Henshaw, and Hugh A. Self. All confessed their own and testified to the others' guilt, and also gave, as correctly as they could remember, the names of the whole party engaged in that crime. Fry and Henshaw were tried by drum-head court-martial on the 30th ultimo and executed the same day by hanging. I have thought it my duty to ask of the Department that the punishment of Hugh A. Self be commuted to imprisonment. He is only sixteen years old, not very intelligent, and was led away on that occasion by his farther and elder brother, both of whom I learn have now been captured by General Carroll's troops.

Hearing that the insurgents had gathered in force at or near the bend of Chucky River, and thence to the neighborhood of Parrottsville and of Newport, on the French Broad, in Cocke County, I moved the Twenty-ninth North Carolina, with two companies of the Third Georgia Battalion, in that direction on the 3rd instant. Hearing that General Carroll had troops on the line of railroad at Morristown, I arranged with them by telegraph to move into the enemy's country at the same time and from opposite directions.

That country consists of a tumultuous mass of steep hills, wooded to the top, with execrable roads winding through the ravines and often occupying the beds of the water-courses. A few of the insurgent scouts were seen, pursued, and fired on. One was desperately wounded and left at a cabin near by.

At the farm houses along the more open valleys no men were to be seen, and it is believed that nearly the whole male population of the country were lurking in the hills on account of disaffection of fear. The women in some cases were greatly alarmed, throwing themselves on the ground and wailing like savages. Indeed, the population is savage.

The expedition lasted four days, and in the course of it we met Colonel Powell's command deep in the mountains, and our guns were responded to at no great distance by a force under Captain Monsarrat.

These people cannot be caught in that manner. As likely to be more effective, I have detached three companies of Colonel Vance's regiment to Parrottsville, with instructions to impress horses from Union men and be active in seizing troublesome men in all directions. They will impress provisions, giving certificates thereof, with assurance that the amounts will be paid if the future loyalty of the sufferer shall