PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE, TENTH DISTRICT OF PA.,

Pottsville, June 10, 1863.

Colonel JAMES B. FRY,

Prov. March General of the United States, Washington, D. C.:

DEAR SIR: On the 4th instant I had two instances of assault upon the enrolling officers within this district-one in sub-district Numbers 7, consisting of Schuylkill Township, and the other in sub-district Numbers 23, consisting of Hegins and Hubley Townships, both within Schuylkill County.

The assault in sub-district Numbers 7 was in the mining village of Newkirk, some fourteen miles east of this place. I send you copies of two letters relating to this, one from the enrolling officer, Jeremiah F. Werner, and the other from William K. Jones, who was with him at the time, and who is an intelligent and reliable citizen of Tamaqua. These will exhibit to you the character of the assault, and of the people also, who are to be enrolled there. I have not yet learned what was done by the four persons, or either of them, whom Mr. Jones names, nor who fired the revolver. I therefore have not yet taken steps to arrest anybody as concerned in that assault. The assault in sub-district Numbers 23 was in Hegins Township, among a framing population of Pennsylvania Germans, some twenty-two miles or thereabouts north of west from here. I send you herewith a copy of the affidavit of Peter W. Kutz, the enrolling officer, which will acquaint you with that case. I deemed it improper to let this instance of assault pass unnoticed. I therefore, upon this affidavit of Kutz, ordered my deputy, Uriah Gane, to arrest the three assailants, Abraham Bressler, Israel Stutzman, and Christian Stutzman.

At 8 o"clock in the evening of Monday, the 8th instant, Deputy Gane, with the sergeant (William Parks) and three men of the guard and James Bowen, a special assistant, left here in two carriages to execute the order. They reached Bressler's house after midnight and posted themselves, as the deputy says, properly about the house. Bressler was at home, and a man who is represented to me as named Abraham Reed, and as a hired man of Bressle's, was also within. Bowen knows Bressler well, and tells me is sure Bressler was within, because he heard and knows his voice.

Bressler refused to open the front door, where Gane and Bowen stood, and tried toe scape by the back door. Sergeant Parks and one of the guards were at the back door. It was opened from within, and Bressler and Reed showed themselves there. Sergeant Parks at once laid hold of Bressler and said "you are my prisoner. I arrest you in the name of the provost-marshal," and then shouted. "Marshal! Marshal!" Then one of the men inside called to the other from "the rifle." Bressler escaped from the sergeant's grasp and jumped back into the house, and Reed prevented the sergeant following by shutting-to the door and holding it. Gane, who was in front, on hearing the sergeant call for the marshal, at once went around to the back door, where I understand this happened. A person at the door was holding it to, and as the sergeant and men say, had a rifle in his hand. About the time Gane got there the door was opened, the sergeant had fired his revolver inside, and Gane saw a man disappear in the smoke within. He rushed in, seized the man and arrested him "in the name of the United States." It was dark. On procuring a light he discovered the man he has seized was not Bressler, but Reed, an he let him go and went on searching for Bressler. On going to an end window he found it open and a rifle standing beside it. This rifle he