GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 86.
Washington, May 9, 1865.

Lists to be made of volunteer officers.

For the information of the War Department, lists will at once be prepared and forwarded of all officers in the volunteer service, made out separately for each arm of the service and each branch of the staff, showing the relative merit of the officers in their regiments or departments, as determined by boards of officers, to be appointed for the purpose by corps and other independent commanders. The reports of the boards will include the names of all officers belonging to a particular command, whether present or absent; and in the cases of the absent officers the reports, will be based upon the best information attainable. The reports will also state what officers in the opinion of the boards should be discharged.

These lists will be forwarded through the prescribed channel, and the several commanders through whom they may be transmitted will indorse thereon their recommendations, based on their own knowledge of the character of the officers.

The lists will specify the rank and arm for which the officer is deemed competent, and whether he desires to remain in the military service. For all officers below the grade of colonel these lists will be consolidated and arranged by brigade, division, and corps commanders (or independent commands of less than a corps), so as to include all officers in the corps.

The lists of colonels, generals, and staff officers will also be consolidated at army or department and military division headquarters.

In addition to the lists thus furnished through the ordinary military channels, the chiefs of staff departments at Washington will at once obtain from their subordinates similar lists, conveniently consolidated, and forward them to this Department.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

By command of Major-General Terry:

ED. W. SMITH,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, June 17, 1865.

Major-General TERRY,

Commanding, &c., Richmond:

Your proposed order, as far as it goes, is approved by this Department and by the President, but I think it does not quite reach the evil, and therefore will prepare some additional points to be added before it is issued. The Richmond Times states that a meeting of leading and influential citizens of District Numbers 1, Amherst County, on the subject of negro wages, fixed $5 a month as the rate the laborer to clothe himself, pay doctor's bills and taxes, and also adopted certain other measures set forth in the Times article. This is the phase of disease that requires attention and instructions will be given you how to treat it. In the meantime ascertain immediately and report on the following points: First, the names of the persons who attended the meeting, the time and place where it was held; second, the quantity and value of tellable land owned by each person that attended the meeting; third, the names of such of the meeting as have taken the amnesty oath, and the date, and before whom it was taken; fourth, the quantity and estimated value of the cultivated or tillable land in Amherst County and in District Numbers 1, of the country; fifth, the number of white and also the number of black population in said county and district; sixth, the average ratio of tillable land to reach white and each black inhabitant. Furnish this information, or so much as can be had, quick as possible.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.