C.

CIRCULAR.] ADJUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Richmond, January 8, 1863.

SIR: Your attention is called to the great necessity which now exists for strenuous exertions in securing men to fill up the various commands of the army within a reasonable time. You are therefore desired to detail from your command such suitable officers and men as can be spared to proceed at once to those sections of the country in which they regiments were raised for the purpose of gathering conscripts and conducting them to their commands without passing them through camps of instruction in the ordinary manner.

Every encouragement will be offered by the officers thus detailed consistent with the law and the regulations of the service, and by kind treatment and arguments addressed to the patriotism and sense of duty of citizens, to induce them to enter the service of their country. Such person as are liable to conscription will be allowed to join any particular company and regiment requiring recruits within the command in which the officers may be serving. In like manner such persons as are within conscript ages, and who may come forward and offer themselves for service, will be allowed to volunteer, and will receive all the benefits which are secured by law to volunteers. Recruits thus obtained must, however, in all cases enter companies already in service, and cannot be organized into new companies or regiments.

The officers and men detailed by this authority will be governed generally by the acts of conscription and exemption and the regulations in connection therewith, published in General Orders, Numbers 82, of 1862, from this office. Copies of this order will be furnished to parties interested in this circular on application to this office.

Officers sent for the purpose of gathering conscripts should be instructed to apprehend all stragglers from the Army in their reach.

By order of Secretary of War:

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

(To generals commanding military departments and districts and armies in the field.)

D.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF S. C., GA., AND FLA., Numbers 27.
Charleston, S. C., January 29, 1864.

I. All members of the several regiments of South Carolina reserves now in the service of the Confederate States within the ages of eighteen and forty-five will at once be called upon to select the company and regiment or battalion of the State of South Carolina now in service of this department for the war to which they may prefer to be attached. And all who fail to make such selection on or before the expiration of their period of ninety days, for which they have been received, will then be assigned, as far as practicable, to the several regiments already in service from their respective districts or parishes, or those from the same Congressional district.