The next night we had an alarm. Some fellow with the night-mare rushed screaming through camp, "the rebs, the rebs are on us!" The men caught up their arms and rushed into the trenches; they behaved well in this most trying of all circumstances--a night alarm. Horses were saddled, inquiry made, and all found quiet.

The next day the enemy having retired, the two regiments I had detached to Gillmore returned to me. Gillmore followed Wright in pursuit of the retreating enemy. I had orders to return to Washington and release my volunteer civilians and return them to their ordinary work. All this time the Quartermaster's Department was fitting ut the troops which arrived from Petersburg and New Orleans with horses, wagons, or artillery. We mounted 2,000 or 3,000 cavalry; gave 1,000 or 2,00 horses to horse artillery batteries; supplied 15,000 men with a new wagon train, and mounted most of the general officers and started them, a well-equipped movable column in pursuit.

And so the campaign and siege are over, and the administration is blamed by the Copperheads, and applauded by all true loyal citizens for turning back the tide of rebel invasion, and this without getting a single man from Maryland, supine Pennsylvania, or from the Governor of New York. Some of the men called out when the danger was pressing, are beginning to arrive, now that it is over.

M. C. MEIGS,

Brevet Major-General, U. S. Army.

Numbers 39. Report of Captain James J. Dana, Assistant Quartermaster, U. S. Army, of the defense of Washington.

HDQRS. OFFICE BATTALION OF THE Q. M. DEPARTMENT,
Washington, D. C., July 18, 1864.

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that, in compliance with your directions of the 9th instant, I prepared a list of clerks and employees of this office with a view to their military organization, divided them into five companies, and procured the necessary arms, equipments, and ammunition.

On the 11th instant the battalion was called upon to relieve the quartermaster's employees of the Washington depot, who had supplied the guards for the several corrals, stables, store-houses, &c., previously guarded by the Veteran Reserve Corps.

The following localities were thus placed under charge of battalion, viz:

First, Nineteenth street wagon park.

Second, clothing depot building on H street, near Seventeenth and Quartermaster-General's Office.

Third, Eastern Branch corral and stables.

Fourth, Kendall Green corral and stables.

Fifth, workshops, corrals, stables on F street, from Twenty-first to Twenty-third.

Each of these places was guarded by one company of the battalion, commanded respectively by Captains Card, Wagner, Hoyt, Robinson, and Rutherford, of this department.