I consider the letter of importance, and have thought it proper to send it to you. Mr. Wallace is a gentleman of high standing, and his statements can be fully relied upon.

Yours, truly,

J. C. RAMSAY,

C. S. District Attorney.

[Inclosure.]

MARYVILLE, December 18, 1861.

General J. C. RAMSAT:

DEAR SIR: I take occasion now to answer the inquiries contained in your letter of the 14th instant.

After Brownlow came to this county we availed ourselves of every opportunity to find out about his sayings and doings, but he so covered over his trail that we have been able to ascertain but little concerning him. On the first Monday of November, the Monday immediately preceding the bridge-burning, some 300 to 500 persons were in town, most all of whom were Union men. It was the day of our quorum county court, at which not more ah a score or two of persons usually attend. We did not understand the occasion of so many persons, and especially Union men, assembling, and at first supposed they had mistaken the day Baxter was to speak, and had come to hear him. Upon making inquiry, we found that that was not the case; that they knew he was to speak the next day, and, furthermore, we learned for the first time that they were not going to vote for Baxter, but still we could not ascertain on what business or for what purpose they had all come to town.

About 11 o'clock Brownlow and old Parson Cummings came in and put up the Rev. Mr. Dowell's. Immediately after their arrival there was a general going to see them at Dowell's by the Unionites. Caucuses and private conferences were the order of that day and night. We could learn nothing that Brownlow was saying. His companion (Cummings), however, in the course of the day told a friend of his, a Union man and a brother in the church, that the Federal Army would be at Knoxville the last of that week; that Brownlow had left Knoxville until its arrival, and that as soon as the Army reached there he was going back and resume the publication of his paper. He assured his friend that this might be relied on; that he had received it from a reliable source, and there was no doubt of it. Whatever might have been the occasion of the assemblage, we discovered very clearly that there was something going on that pleased the Union men exceedingly. They seemed in very good spirits, and more confident and defiant than they had been for months.

The next morning the news was brought to town-at least we Southern men heard it then for the first time-that the Federal Army was at Jamestown, 12,000 strong, and coming on to Knoxville. About 10 o'clock that morning Brownlow and Cummings and a man by the name of Mainis left town for the mountains. They went that night to Snider's, in Tuckaleeche Cove. The next day they went into Weir's Cove, in Sevier County. There they parted, Brownlow remaining in the cove, and Cummings and Mainis going over toward Waldron's Creek. On that day Mainis told a man by the name of Waters substantially the same things Cummings had told Jennings. I have no doubt they told the same thing to many others, but we have tried them long enough in