Unknown to Charles A. Dana, February 6, 1865

Hon. CHARLES A. DANA, Assistant Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIB: I have the honor to acknowledge your letter of the 31st of January with inclosures and to make the following statement in accordance with your request:

On the 5th day of July, 1863, I received at my headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, information by telegraph that Lieut. Col. Charles S. Hanson, commanding the Twentieth Kentucky, had surrendered with his command at Lebanon, Ky., to General John H. Morgan, and that Colonel Hanson had been paroled and left in Lebanon when the enemy retreated from that place. I called upon Colonel Hanson by telegraph for a report of the affair and received from him the following reply : LEBANON, K. Y., July 5, 1868. xeneral BURNSIDE:

I was attacked about 7 o’clock this morning by General Morgan with 4,000 men and six pieces of artillery. I had only 350 men. I held out until about 1 o’clock, when our ammunition became exhausted, and the rebels commenced burning the town, and my men wearied, quite a number wounded, and despairing of receiving ae aaa ih I deemed it wise to give up. “Tis regarded as a good fight on my part. CHARLES S$. HANSON, Lieutenant-Colonel.

Other conversation took place by telegraph in reference to his parole and the direction taken by the enemy, in which Colonel Hanson stated that he did not think it proper to give such information, as he had taken his parole. The conversation resulted in the following dispateh :