full and waiting. Captain Elliott hesitates. I have ordered two regiments (Colonels Quinby and Walrath) to proceed to Washington immediately via Harrisburg and Baltimore.

E. D. MORGAN.

NEW YORK, May 26, 1861.

Honorable SIMON CAMERON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: I inclose herewith a copy of a letter which I handed to the Union Defense Committee this morning. It explains the position of things with regard to the fourteen regiments which it is to furnish. I am afraid it will not entertain my proposition, but will insist upon raising six regiments instead of four, making ten the whole number furnished by the committee instead of fourteen. The Governor is here now. He read me this morning written authority from you permitting him to furnish thirty-eight regiments in addition to ten already in the field, making forty- eight in all. He is doing his best to get his regiments organized and off. Two have been ordered from Elmira to Washington to-day. This makes five in all dispatched to Washington. I hope and expect that five regiments from the Governor will leave for Old Point in twenty-four hours, but the unlooked-for clashing and delays have made me suspicious of any statements made to me, and it is physically impossible for me to verify them by personal inspection.

I saw General Sickles yesterday. He asserts that he has authority from the Department to raise five regiments-I have not seen his papers-and he requires two or three days' notice, he says, to bring his men together. I have no idea that he can raise them.

Bartlett's Naval Brigade has about 300 men, entirely disorganized and without discipline. I will know more definitely about them to-morrow. My conviction is firm, however, at present that both Sickles' and Bartlett's bodies of men ought to be disbanded and dispersed. The authority for their organization was obtained by misrepresentations made to the President and Secretary of War.

I go to Albany to-morrow with the Governor, and will telegraph to you anything of interest that may occur.

Very respectfully, yours,

W. B. FRANKLIN,

Colonel Twelfth Infantry, U. S. Army.

[Inclosure.]

NEW YORK, May 25, 1861.

Honorable HAMILTON FISH,

Chairman Union Defense Committee:

SIR: When I had the honor of meeting the Union Defense Committee on Thursday, the 23rd instant, in obedience to orders from the War Department, which I read to the committee, a memorandum was handed to me by one of the members of the committee, of which the following is a copy:

Second [and] Fourteenth already in Washington.

Ninth [and] Seventy-ninth paraded in uniform yesterday; ready to leave in six hours.

Ten regiments to be inspected on Saturday, 25th instant; all enrolled, but not yet inspected. These are selected from over thirty organizations.

Although my orders from the Department were explicit that I should find out the number of men under the control of the committee, and