In your communication of the 16th you threaten to execute 10 of the officers and soldiers of the U. S. Army for every one of your men, prisoners in my hands, which I shall execute under the orders of the President of the United States, which I inclosed for your information. This announcement, taken in connection with the execution of the North Carolinians and similar proceedings elsewhere, evinces a most extraordinary thirst for life and blood on the part of the Confederate authorities. Such violent and revengeful acts, resorted to as a s how of strength, are the best evidences of the weak and crumbling condition of the Confederacy.

This wicked rebellion has now attained that desperate state which history shows is always the shortest of revolutionary stages. The friends of the Union everywhere truly interpret these gins of madness and recklessness, and are now making one grand rally for the utter overthrow and final extinction of all treason.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN J. PECK,

Major-General.

HDQRS. ARMY AND DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., April 14, 1864.

Major R. S. DAVIS,

Asst. Adjt. General, Dept. of Va. and N. C., Fort Monroe, Va.:

MAJOR: In accordance with instructions from the commanding general of the department, I have the honor to submit the following report upon the condition of the recruiting service in North Carolina for both white and colored troops:

It appears from the reports of the several sub-district commanders that there are recruiting stations in this district for the following regiments and partial organizations, each keeping up several rendezvous in New Berne, Washington, Plymouth, Beaufort, and Morehead City: Second North Carolina Union Volunteers (white); First North Carolina Union Volunteers (white); regiment of colored infantry, which Lieutenant Colonel George W. Tew, Fifth Rhode Island Artillery, has authority to raise; battalion of heavy artillery (colored), which Major T. C. Jameson, Fifth Rhode Island Artillery, has authority to raise; First North Carolina Cavalry (white), which Captain Andrew Stewart, assistant adjutant-general, U. S. Volunteers, has authority to raise; Second U. S. Colored Cavalry; Third U. S. Colored Cavalry; Tenth U. S. Colored Infantry; Thirty-seventh U. S. Colored Infantry; Thirty-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry.

Each of these organizations has sent a number of officers and men to conduct the recruiting operations in this district. Many of them are here without proper authority, and there seems to be a great lack of organization and unity of action.

Some of the officers engaged have done well, and proved themselves very energetic and efficient, while others have evinced no very remarkable traits except utter incapacity and general uselessness, both as regards recruiting and care of troops. As a general thing, too large detachments are sent upon this duty. The result is that they become mere idlers, with no other object in view than to draw pay and consume rations. Some of these officers, zeallus without knowledge, perhaps, seem to labor to enlist all the men they can pos-