OFFICE OF U. S. ATTORNEY FOR THE

EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Philadelphia, May 7, 1862.

Honorable EDWARD BATES,

Attorney-General of the United States.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th instant instructing me to give my professional and official attention to the suit recently instituted against Honorable Simon Cameron by one Pierce Butler, of this city, and to render whatever aid the full defense of the action may require. It is my pleasure to say in reply that I will be most happy to co-operate with Mr. Benjamin H. Brewster, Mr. Cameron's private counsel, in defending the case, and to contribute whatever assistance it is within my power to render throughout the progress of the cause.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of high esteem and respect, your obedient servant,

GEO. A. CORREY,

U. S. Attorney.

J. HUBLEY ASHTON,

Assistant U. S. Attorney.

Order made by the U. S. Senate, July 11, 1862.

Ordered, That the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from the further consideration of the message of the President of the United States relative to the arrest of Simon Cameron, late Secretary of War, at the suit of Pierce Butler, for false imprisonment.

Case of John Garnett Guthrey.

John Garnett Guthrey, of Petersburg, Va., was arrested* at New York on or about the 21st day of August, 1861, and taken to Fort Lafayette and there confined. He was charged on the information of some members of the detective police with holding unlawful intercourse with persons in the insurrectionary States. On his arrest there was found in Guthrey's possession a large amount of State bonds of several of the insurrectionary States with evidence of their having been then recently purchased in New York for account of parties residing in Petersburg, Va., and a number of letters addressed to persons in the State of Virginia which he said he had received with the purpose of carrying them to Virginia. On the 3rd day of October, 1861, the said Guthrey was released on his parole to do no act hostile or injurious to the United States and not to go to or correspond with any rebellious State. The said Guthrey was again arrested on the 24th day of December, 1861, charged on the oaths of Samuel Hyman and Thomas P. Wood with breaking his parole by corresponding with persons in the seceded States and laying plans to return to Virginia himself by way of England and Cuba as soon as he could get possession of his bonds. The said Guthrey remained in custody at Fort Lafayette February 15, 1862, when in the order of the War Department of the preceding day he was transferred to the charge of that Department. - From Record Book, State Department, "Arrests for Disloyalty. "

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* See affidavit of Robert Murray, September 28, 1861, in case of Millner, post, for important reference to Guthrey's arrest.

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