any other of the most enegetic and enterpising portion of our citizens, men well adapted to military service by habits of command and prompt obedience, hardened by exposure, fertile in resources, vigorous and energetic in action, and accustomed to danger where prompt decision is required.

It is to this class of men that the Government is largely indebted for many of its brilliant trimphs and without whose services your order for the movement of the Twenty-third Army Corps could not have been executed. Few persons are aware of the superior ability, energy, and unceasing watchfulness necessary even on ordinary occasions to secure the movement of so large a force over a long line of railroad, and fewer still appreciate the great increse of difficulties and dangers during such extraoridanry severe weather as we have had for the last month, to insure safety from accident and disaster; and while nothing that I can say will add to the reputation of gentlemen so well known to the community as are ost of those who have been engaged in this ovement, yet it is but just to place upon record the fact that these private citizens have spared no labor and omitted no efforts toa ccomplish the desired boject; that from the highest official to the lowest employe days of anxious toil and nights of sleepless vigilance have conclusively proved that all were fully awake to the importance of the duty devolving upon them, and felt that intense interest which men alone feel who are thoroughly conscious of their personal responsibility for the lives of thousands and the success of an important enterprise.

The gentlemen to whom I allude are William H. Clement, president, and E. W. Woodward, superintendent of the Little Miami Railroad; D. McLauren, superintendent of the Hamilton and Dayton Railroad; Thomas Lough, superintendent Steubenville and Indiana Railroad; Honorable H. J. Jewett, president, and D. W. Caldwell, superintendent Ohio Central Railroad; John w. Garrett, president, and W. Prescott Smith, master oif transportation, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, all of whom, I think, are justly entitled to the thanks of the Government for the serivces they have rendered. The circumstances, I think render it not invidious that I should especially refer to the management of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, where indomitable will, energy, and superior ability have been so often and so conspicuously manifested, and where such invaluable services have been rednered to troad nearly 400 miles in length, so often broken and apparently destroyed, so constantly subjected to rebel incursions, that had it been under ordinary mangement, it would long since have ceased operations; yet, notwithstanding all the difficulties of the severe winter season, the great disorganization of employes necessarily incident to a road thus situated, its most extraoridanry curves, grades, bridges, tunnels, and themountain heights it scales, it has moved this large force in the shortest possible time with almost the exactness and regularity of ordinary passenger trains, and with a freedom from accident that, I think, has seldom, if ever, been paralleled.

Much credit is also due to the boatmen of the West, who with scarcely a day's notice promptly and cheefully furnsihed ever forty transports for this service, and who have so often and so patiently submitted to the seizure of their transports, and effectively assisted in securing the success of our armies. During the last four year it has often fallen to my lot to witness the cool bravery and acts of daring of this calss of men in the passage of batteires, or the sudden and unexpected attack of bands of guerrillas while navigating our Western rivers; and Generals Grant and Sherman, with many others, will bear witness that none