Editor's note: The following letter was put at our disposal by the father of a member of Schambeck's Dragoons. Since the missive will undoubtedly be of interest to the relatives and friends of the author, we are glad to publish it. For obvious reasons we do not reveal the name of the young man who wrote the letter. By the way, we have received many letters of similar content.

"Flat Top Tannery, Virginia,

"July 20.

"We left Gauley about two weeks ago, being assigned to the Second and Third German Regiments of Ohio, which refused to keep the American artillery detachment that had been part of their contingent. Our commanding general (Cox) is either a coward or a traitor, else he would not have ordered his division, which consists of excellent soldiers, to retreat so shamefully, after he had forbidden the artillery to use their guns to repel the enemy.

"We do not know just what our future course will be. We cannot advance the distance of eighty miles to the railroad, from which we get our supplies, until East Tennessee is in our possession. As things are now, we must haul our rations by wagon from a depot sixty miles distant, and the road leads through a dense wilderness.

"Meanwhile, we have daily skirmishes with guerrillas, who often came very near to our camp. Only yesterday, a soldier who had ventured unarmed beyond our outpost was attacked by a band of these murderous marauders, who tied him to a tree, made a target of him,and finally plunged his own knife into his heart; thus we found him. Naturally, this atrocious act caused great excitement in camp, and woe unto the cruel perpetrators of this crime, should they fall into our hands.

"It is said that most of the guerillas are farmers from the neighborhood; even women and children participate in these cruelties. Whenever they capture a soldier, they torture him to death. Can anybody blame us if we avenge the 3death of a comrade by completely razing the homes of these beastly people, and hanging the guilty on the first tree we come to?

"Just now we have but one wish--an immediate change in leadership; then everything would be well. But men like Sigel and Fremont are appreciated only when extreme necessity demands that such men be given the position they so well deserve. If Colonel Moor, a German from Cincinnati, who leads a brigade at present, had been our commander, we would now be in a much different situation; but an ignorant traitor is in authority.

"We have been receiving our pay regularly during the past four months."