OFFICE ACTG. ASST. PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL, NORTHERN DIVISION, STATE OF NEW YORK,

Albany, August 27, 1863.

Colonel JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General, Washington, D. C.:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a telegram of this date from the Provost-Marshal-General directing that the Governor of this State be notified "in advance, both by telegraph and mail, of the precise day upon which the draft will commence in each district under your (my) charge," and that provost-marshals be notified to do the same. I should have hitherto performed this duty had i not supposed that the communications addressed to the Governor, informing him of the contemplated draft in the respective districts, from the Provost-Marshal-General's Office, transmitted through this office in the inclosures containing the orders for draft, rendered such a course on my part supererogatory. While I was in Oswego and in Schenectady prosecuting the draft in those cities for their respective districts orders for drafts in several districts arrived at this office, as I had requested, but without the usual letters to the Governor. Of the absence of these letters I was not made aware until upon inquiry to-day of Lieutenant Chur, who was in charge of the office during my absence.

I inclose a copy a letter to the Governor in reference to the draft in Oswego and a copy of a dispatch received from the Provost-Marshal-General's Office while in Schenectady, stating that the Provost-Marshal-General would notify the Governor in relation to the draft there, and an extract from a letter from same office, of the 3rd instant, inclosing orders for draft in the Twelfth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Districts, as follows:

You will not commence the draft in any of the above districts without first notifying me by telegraph that you are ready to do so, in order that I may inform the Governor.

This extract was underscored in the original, and pursuant to which I notified the Provost-Marshal-General by telegraph and mail, on the 20th instant, that the draft would take place in the Nineteenth District on the 24th instant and in the Twentieth District on the 25th instant. I am thus explicit that the Provost-Marshal-General may be informed that hitherto I have had reason to believe that notifications to the Governor, as now directed, was no part of my duty.

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

FREDK. TOWNSEND,

Major, U. S. Army,. Actg. Asst. Provost-Marshal-General.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.] OFFICE ACTG. ASST. PROVOST-MARSHAL- GENERAL, NORTHERN DIVISION, STATE OF NEW YORK, Albany, Augusta 3, 1863.

His Excellency HORATIO SEYMOUR,

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

GOVERNOR: The inclosed letter has been retained by me, having been received during the continuance of the riot in New York City.

The Provost-Marshal-General was informed that I had retained the orders for draft. A draft will take place in Oswego to-morrow.

I am, sir, very respectfully, &c.,

FREDK. TOWNSEND,

Major, U. S. Army, Actg. Asst. Provost-Marshal-General.