out about cloth, I am telegraphing for him over all Europe, and if he does not reach me by to-morrow morning my option for buying up these contracts will have expired, and it will be too late. If we can carry out the whole operation it will be the greatest victory yet over the enemy. The winter clothing for 100,000 men taken out of their hands, when they cannot replace it, would almost compensate for Bull Run. there is no considerable amount of cloth to be had in Europe; the stock are very short. I am negotiating for Mr. Smith to get out of the Government (French) stores what he wants, and have a prospect of success; but it is a matter of the greatest secrecy, and the least whisper or suspicion outside would cause it to fail. I dare hardly tell you that I am not without hope of getting a large amount of guns through the same channel, after the repeated failures of others. If so they will be got without having to pay heavy bribe, as was proposed before. But my credits must be increased without delay.

The drift of public sentiment is all against us in France. The Prince Napoleon is the only one of the court, I fear, who is for us. I have this from one of the court just from Compiegne, and there is not a workman or shop-keeper in Paris that does not put all their troubles upon the blockade, and who does not believe they will vanish if it is once raised. And yet I do not think the Emperor (now public sentiment is at the desired pitch) will be induced to do anything against us. The bread question is bearing down upon him, and they can't afford to do without our supplies, and he knows if the masses do not that nine-tenths of the exportations of the United states are consumed North. "Why is it," said he, to a friend at Compiegne but Wednesday last, "that the North are constantly receiving checks with all their superior strength?" And the intimation followed, as I have heard frequently repeated by men in high places, that the North does not seem to be in earnest; has not its heart in this struggle, and that it will soon abandon the contest. The time has now come for us to do something; if not for ourselves for Europe, to vindicate our purpose and the next traitor, and the first ex-U. S. officer caught with arms in his hands? The Russians are our friends everywhere, except perhaps in Washington. Kisseleff, Russian ambassador at Paris, I know has earnestly advocated our cause with the French Government. In great haste,

Truly and respectfully, yours,

H. S. SANFORD.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, November 12, 1861.

Governor KIRKWOOD,

Davenport, Iowa:

Organize a regiment to absorb your detached companies.

THOMAS A. SCOTT.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS, Numbers 570.
Boston, November 2, 1861.

It having been represented at these headquarters that Major- General Butler, in command of the Department of New England, sent to Colonel Stevenson, Twenty-fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, an order to deliver up to him certain soldiers in said Twenty-fourth Regi-