The Clerk read as follows: “At the breaking out of the Present rebellion, Josiah O. Armes, the claimant, wasthe owner and in pAonsasnedsaslieo, nof a yaluable houseand out buildings at Fairfax county, Virginia. The house was a valuable one, and all the testimony in the case tendsto show it to have been worth 12 or 14,000 dollars. It was built of stone, 3 storieshigh, with a cupolaon top, 14 feethigh, with windows for lighting thestairway beneath.The housewas octagonalin form, and about 200 fteeentdining circumference. Thereweretwo verandasexaround it, well latticed and supported by twotiers of columns.Theroof the housewascovered with tin, and the cornicewaslarge and heavy. The house contained 30 rooms, some of large, including 7parlors. The builwdihnigchofwtehree housewas cornmenced in 1856and completed in 1860, and was intended for a femaleseminary. There were in the house 28 windows, and the rooms werewell ventilated. The wallswere 14 inches in thickness; and there werefour firmly built brick chimneys. The foundationwasgood, and the wood work painted outside and in. ‘The master builder of fromhis knowledge the house, testifies that at the time it $10,000 costthe said Armes There wereattached to it a servant's house, a granary.barns, sheds, and carriage house. The last of November, or the ist of December, 1851, this, house and buildings, were destroyed by order of Colonel R. J. Belge, of the 68 h regi gimentNewYork volunteers. ‘.Mr. Armes had been driven out from the house before its destruction; and the country about it seems to have been a sort of debatable or skirmish ground– sometimesheld by Union troops, and sometimesby the rebels. Mr. Armes was, and is, a thoroughly loyalcitizen. In the commencement of the war he was of service to our troops in giving information of the movement and situation of the rebels; and generalHeintzelman, in a letter submitted to the coln mittee, acknowledges the valuable aid he afforded; At or about the timethepropertywasdestroyedby order of Colonel Belge, the buildings seems to have beenused by the rebeltroopsboth as an observatory of the movements of the Union troops and as a strongholdflom which they fired upon our men as occasion offered., To prevent its beinglonger so used ColouelBelge orderedit, aas military necessity, to destroyed. be General Heintzeiman, in a letter dated January 18, 1851, sayshe heard of the matter at the timethat the buildings were burned by our troops, and it was a military necessity. He also adds, that ‘the mother' [meaning Mrs. Armes, the wife of claimant, the and mother of a young man then in Army] our came in one dark night last summer to ye us information at the risk of her life.', , "The committee havenot been able to evidenceof Colonel Belge, who ordered the bptraoinpetrhtey to be destroyed, for the reason that he service, has left the and his place of ascertained. There is, howreesviedre, ntcheehtaesstnimotonbyeoefn severalpersons, officers in and members of his regi ment, who say that they heard Colonel Belge give theorder for the destruction of the property at time the it was burned. “The House of onto. have reported a bill for the relief Mr. Armes, to the amount of $9, 500; and the committee aresatisfiedthat the propertywas of that value and more; that it was destroyedby the Uniontroops as a military necessity, under order of their commander: they, therefore recommend the passage of the House bill. "Mr. Armes is an agedman; he is utterly impov trished by the destruction of this property: he is patriotic, having had a son in having the Union Army, and exerted himself to aid the Union cause in variousways. His family weredriven fromtheir home, and the wife, whorisked her life to bringinformation to our troops in the darkness of the night, is since dead. The caseappealsstrongly to our sympathies, but equally and moreso to our senseof justice.”