When they join this order they take an oath before they will receive them higher than the first and second degrees- they take an oath that, if they fall into the hands of the military they are to swear point blank to the contrary every time they ask anything about this order.

I am not only willing, but anxious, to give you all the information I can that may be of benefit to the Government. I am myself profoundly disgusted with the order and wish I had never been in it and had no knowledge of it; but I took an oath, on becoming a member, and I cannot shake off that oath entirely from my conscience. I am willing to give you all the essential information I can, and have done so, but I cannot give names, signs, &c., because, having given you the information I have, you have a sufficient key to unravel the rest and protect the Government against injury from it.

Z 11.

NEW YORK, June 17, 1864.

Colonel J. P. SANDERSON, U. S. Army,

Provost- Marshal- General, Dept. of the Missouri, Saint Louis, Mo.:

COLONEL: Your telegram of 13th reached me in due time, I shall be ready to move at a moment's warning.

The man whom you advised me to leave on the evening of the 13th to report to me has not yet arrived, although I have received a letter from Saint Louis written on that day. If he started when you said he would, it is singular that he has not arrived here.

Since I wrote you last I brought Forrester in communion with General Dix's man, employed in the "McClellan Minute Guard" matter. He was born in Charleston, S. C., and raised in Georgia. He had over thirty years' experience of Southern life, and is well acquainted with prominent men in the South. His name is D. Chaffee, a clerk in a furnishing store on Broadway. Forrester says he is a keen, shrewd man, and very 'scary. " That C. made the following statement, in substance, of the objects, &c., of the organization refereed to above.

That the principal mover, known to the public here is, as I wrote you several weeks since, a Dr. R. F. Stevens, of the Nineteenth Ward, in this city. He is the only known public head of the organization here to the uninitiated, and it is very difficult to procure initiation into the degrees. From this I am led to conclude that the higher degrees are only intended to be conferred on the leaders in the movement, according to their capacity and importance of influence. It is intended to oppose the present Administration, and is claimed to have figured largely in the late Baltimore convention, at which Amos Kendall, of Washington, and Governor Hunt, of New york, and other prominent politicians opposed to the Administration were present and exercised a powerful influence. The rank and file in the lower class of organizations have three degrees, and has for its object the election of McClellan to the Presidency.

Stevens represents that General Fremount's nomination at Cleveland was brought about by the friends of McClellan and the Democratic leaders who were present at that convention. He read parts of letters to my informant from Western men of prominence, but did not give any names, all having reference to the matter named above. The secondary object was the nomination of Mr. Lincoln at Baltimore, where they were represented as being present in large numbers, and contributing their whole strength to accomplish that result. This having been