NEWTOWN, September 26, 1863.

(Via Staunton, 27th.)

General S. COOPER:

Generals Slocum's and Howard's corps are going to re-enforce Rosecrans, and will be under Joe Hooker. They move 5,000 every night over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and commenced last night, 25th. I have sent courier to General Ewell with full particulars, and will try to damage the railroad to-night.

H. W. GILMOR,

Major, Commanding Cavalry.

[29.]

HEADQUARTERS BENNING'S BRIGADE,
Near Chattanooga, September 28, 1863.

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond:

SIR: Late yesterday I received your letter of the 18th instant in which you say that the President had been informed that in the recent riots in Raleigh, N. C., Major Shepherd and other officers of my brigade were prominent as leaders, and, as it was alleged, if not with my consent at least with my knowledge. There is not a particle of turth in the charge so far as the charge concerns. me. I arrived at Raleigh with a part of the brigade at the beginning of night, and immediately busied myself in procuring transportation for the troops in this direction. Having arranged this in an hour or two I returned tot he depot where the troops were, lay down with my head on a cross-tie, and slept till 11 o'clock, when the train to carry the troops forward came in from Goldsborough. I then put them aboard the cars. Whilst engaged in that work I heard for the first time of the outrage on the printing office. It was then too late for me to do anything, preventive or remdial. I had not had a suspicion that any such outbreak was contemplated. Nothing came to my notice on the way to Raleigh or after we arrived there to excite suspicion that any plot was brewing against the Standard newspaper. If I had suspected such a thing I should have taken the most rigorous measures to suppress it. And as far as I could learn no officer of the brigade was engaged in the affair. As to Major Shreperd (lieutenant-colonel it should be), the imputation of complicity is in an especial manner unfounded and unjust. He was conspicuous in the suppression of the outbreak. When it commenced he was at a hotel awaiting his supper, and was found there by Governor Vance. He immediately accompanied Governor Vance to the place and aided him to stop the work of destruction. It was he who, after Governor Vance's speech, ordered the troops off, and they, without a word, obeyed him. All this he told me himself, and he is a man of character and perfect veracity. He is now absent, having been wounded in the last of the two battles on the Chickamauga. I will send him a copy of your letter to me with instructions to give you, according to your injunctions, a full report of all the facts of the case with his knowledge.

The full explanation of the affair I take to be this: When my brigade arrived at Weldon we found there a party of North Carolinian troops, commanded by a lieutenant, who informed me that he was ordered to the vicinity of Salisbury (I think) to arrest some deserters, and urged me to let his party go along with my brigade for the sake of dispatch. I said yes, if he could find room in the train for his party. He replied that he would take the etops of the cars. I told him then that he might do so. Accordingly he and his party took the tops of