will be careful to discriminate between the ordinary assemblages of the people, incident to an election or canvassing of the returns of an election, and the assembling of a mob. They will seek for information concerning the meeting or formation of any bodies of men for any disloyal purposes, and report the same. They will also report the location or situation of any arms they may hear or know of, and such other information as in their judgment the commanding general should be possessed of. They will demand and receive at the telegraph stations precedence over all other business for their dispatches, should the nature of the information, in their judgment, make such a course necessary.

Should there be no disturbance, and everything remain quiet during the day, they will report the same, by telegraph, at 10 o'clock at night. In reporting occurrences, give the character of any organization or mob; the apparent number of participants and spectators, respectively; armed or unarmed, and how armed; exact locality, with the hour; their avowed or apparent object; the direction in which they are moving.

All officers will be held responsible for the correctness of the information transmitted.

By command of Major-General Butler:

A. F. PUFFER,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

The telegraph station which you will use for any report is at Merchants' Exchange and No. 50 Pine street.

By making yourself known at the police or telegraph station your business will be facilitated.

In case of a break in the telegraph lines you will report in writing by a messenger or in person.

(Similar instructions given to other officers.)

HDQRS. MILITARY DISTRICT OF WESTERN NEW YORK,
Elmira, November 8, 1864.

Major General JOHN A. DIX:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that I have just returned from Buffalo, leaving last night. I went on Saturday night, in consequence of rumors of threatened attack on Rochester and other frontier towns, to Rochester. I found the mayor and other civil officers quite solicitous about the safety of the city, and gave careful attention to the grounds of their solicitations, and though satisfied in my own mind that their fears were groundless, I intimated no such opinion, but acted as though I believed all the dangerous rumors real. The Fifty-fourth New York State National Guard had been sent there to be mustered out, their 100 days having expired, and the battery that had been in like manner on guard duty here was forwarded so as to arrive there on Sunday morning. With the consent of the commanders of this regiment and battery I placed them in command of Major A. T. Lee, U. S. Army, now mustering and disbursing officer at Rochester. I placed a section of the battery at the mouth of the harbor. I sent a detachment of the Nineteenth Veteran Reserve Corps to Suspension Bridge, and then proceeded to Buffalo, where I found the same state of feeling as at Rochester, and where there is probably more cause for alarm. I found the civil authorities fully awake, and think they have taken ample precaution for self-protection. At their request I sent a telegram to this