I have the best of reasons for believing that a draft if made will be resisted in this State. Copperheads are armed and Union men are almost entirely unarmed. I am encouraging the organization of militia companies and I want arms from the General Government to furnish them. I would respectfully urge upon the Federal Government the necessity of issuing at least 10,000 stand for infantry and sufficient arms to equip two regiments of cavalry and five batteries of artillery. In making this request I wish to excite no unnecessary alarm, but I know the fact to exist that resistance to a draft and threats of violence to Union citizens are openly made in some parts of the State.

I take the liberty of inclosing two communications received to- day, one from the president of the City Council of Mattoon, and the other from Colonel Monroe, of the One hundred and twenty- third Illinois Volunteers.* I am daily in receipt of communications of this character from the central and southern part of the State.

Hoping that you will give this matter your immediate and favorable consideration, I am, with high regards, your obedient servant,

RICHD. YATES,

Governor.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., August 5, 1863.

His Excellency HORATIO SEYMOUR,

Governor of New York, Albany, N. Y.:

SIR: I have been called upon by persons sent by the towns of Rochester, Batavia, and others, to claim the discharge of drafted persons on the ground that the towns they represent have furnished an excess of men over the calls of 1861 and 1862.

My letter to the Governor of Massachusetts expresses that the benefits promised therein will be conferred when it shall be made to appear by the Governor of any State that an excess has actually been furnished by any town.

I have referred these persons to you in order that they may present their claims to you with the necessary proof, and in order to meet such cases I would be very much obliged to you if you would have prepared a statement showing what quotas were assigned by the State authority to each town under the grand quotas assigned to the State

of New York by the General Government, and a list of the names of all men furnished to the United States by each town, with the companies and regiments in which they were mustered into the service of the Government.

You will please bear in mind that no man is considered to have been actually furnished unless he has been duly mustered into the U. S. service.

Now, the question whether any town has actually furnished an excess is one of fact only, and ot be decided by ascertaining, first, what the quota was that it was required to furnish; and second, by showing that a greater number has actually been mustered into service from this town.

The quota must also be shown to have been a sufficient one to make up with other towns the whole quota of the State, and how and by whom ordered.

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*Inclosures omitted.

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