The Forty-seventh was with General Whipple, who was at the time aiding the provost-marshal in completing the enrollment in one of the very worst districts in Schuylkill County.

CHAMBERSBURG, PA., August 8, 1863.

Governor CURTIN,

Harrisburg, Pa.:

You certainly cannot mean for me to withdraw those troops from Pottsville before others can replace them.

In my opinion you subject every coal mine there to the risk of being destroyed. Order off these, you may have Pottsville laid in ashes and a thousand barbarities committed before the General Government can assemble forces to protect her rights and your people.

If you demand it, every militiaman shell be turned over to you; but the responsibility must rest upon yourself. I trust you will give this your most careful deliberation.

D. N. COUCH,

Major-General.

In reply the following was received:

HARRISBURG, PA., August 2, 1863.

Major-General COUCH:

I do not believe you can hold the militia, and the Government should provide troops, or ask me to enlist militia for the purpose of enforcing the draft. I am sustaining a pressure which is unfair, and no explanation I can make now will satisfy the men. If I had known the regiments were required, I might have induced them to go. Besides, I have no money to pay them for their services. As the authorities in Washington will not communicate with me, will you not immediately present the subject for their consideration?

A. G. CURTIN.

On the 1st instant I understood there would be enough regiments at my command to sustain the laws.

On the 5th, all but seven were to be mustered out.

On the 8th, it is intimated all are to be discharged.

No communication has gone from me to War Department in reference to enlisting militia to enforce the draft, as the Governor suggests, for the reason that it seemed too repugnant a measure to be adopted. I believed that the Governor and myself, acting in unison, could retain enough of the ninety-days" troops to accomplish all that was desired.

The above correspondence, &c., is submitted in order that War Office may know what I have done in this matter, and of my prospects in furnishing assistance to the provost-marshal in future.

With a show of troops in the mining regions there is every belief that the draft could be successfully put through. But if the force now there is weakened before the conscripts are taken from their homes there will be trouble enough.

I am in hopes that the Governor will pause before he gives the order to discharge all of his militia.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

D. N. COUCH,

Major-General.

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

Washington, D. C., August 10, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: The letter dated August 3, from His Excellency Governor Seymour to His Excellency the President of the United States, relating

42 R R-SERIES III, VOL III