be sent out by the general commanding be ordered to report to the commandants of conscripts in the respective States, and furnish them with the list of absentees, and to co- operate generally with they are assigned. Instructions have been issued to all officers under the control of this bureau to increase their bigilance and energy in carrying out the purposes indicated by General Lee. The list of absenctees furnished to this bureau are in progress of distribution, and every possible agency will be employed to arrest and send back the absentees. I regard it as important to success that the oficers sent from the army should by order be required to report to the commandants. I veernture to suggest that it might facilitate the execution of this matter if all officers commanding were specially required forthwith and regularly to send to this bureau a roll of the absentees arranged according to the county and congressional district in which they aresupposed to be. Also a roll of substitutes, geving the name and post- office of the principal.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN S. PRESTON,

Colonel, and Superintendent.

OFFICE INSP. General OF FIELD TRANSPORTATION,

Richmond, August 20, 1863.

General LAWTON,

Quartermaster- General:

SIR: In obedience to the Secretary of War's indorsement concerning the discrepancy between the indoresement of General Elzey and that of my own on the application of the Commissary Department for wagons and teams to haul wheat into Richmond, I have the honor to make the following report:

Captain Tucker, assistant quartermaster at Danville, the only officer there charged with transportation, has under his charge 32 fourhorse wagons and teams; 8 two- horse wagons and teams; 19 serviceable and 15 unserviceable animals not used in the teams habitually, and 37 surplus serviceable and unserviceable wagons, without teams. This transportation is in daily use, as follows; Nine four- horse wagons and teams hauling iron, &c., for Ordnance Department, at Leaksville; 11 four- horse wagons and teams hauling and accumuylating wood for the hospitals at post; 7 four- horse wagons and teams and 1 two- horse wagon and team haulting forage for the Government and support of teams; 5 four- horse and 1 two- horse wagons and teams hauling lumber from mills for hospitals building in neigh borhood; 4 two- horse wagon s and teams employed at the different hospitals; 1 two- horse wagon and team employed by the Commissary Department; 1 two- horse wagon and team employed at stables at the posts.

The 19 serviceable animals are used, about 10 for saddle purposes by wagon- masters, forage agents, &c., and 9 kept as relay animals to supply the places in the teams of such as become, from any cause, unserviceable. The 15 unserviceable animals are atpasture recruitting. I have endeavored in this report to show explicitly the number and description of wagons and teams available at Danville, and how they are daily employed, and from which, I think, the honorable Secretaty cannot fail to conclude that the correctness of my indorse-