deduct one-third in payment of all claims dated prior to February 17, 1864. I know of no law which authorizes this, and while it might be equitable in certain claims, it certainly is manifestly and grossly unjust to the class of claims I am reporting upon. The value of this property was fixed more than a year ago, when the value of gold compared with Confederate money was five or six for one. They are to be paid, if paid at all, in Confederate issue bearing a relationship to gold of seventeen for one. To deduct one-third the value of their property as fixed by arbitrary impressment. It would be a case of great hardship, and I beg leave earnestly to call the attention of Your Excellency to it.

OF ILLEGAL ORGANIZATIONS

it is difficult to speak with accuracy. The history of the organization of one regiment will illustrate the character of all the organizations in this district. Benjamin D. Lay, on the 29th of March, 1863, was a surgeon in the Army. Generals Bragg and Hardee and Surgeons Anderson and Johnson testify in written indorsements to his efficiency in that capacity. On January 16, 1864, he applied for permission to raise a regiment within the lines of the enemy of men of conscript age and of men not liable to conscription when he could obtain the. This application was approved by Lieutenant-General Polk, and on January 21, 1864, an authority was issued form the War Department granting him sixty days in which to orgainze his command, but subject to the approval of Lieutenant-General polk, and his designation of the counties in which Lay was to operate. General Polk confined him to Hinds and Hancock Counties, in Mississippi. Lay accepted the authority on the 1st of March, 1864, and before April had expired announced to General Polk that he had mustered into service 1,100 men. But here a question arises on the threshold. Did the sixty days to which Colonel Lay was limited commence to run form the 21st of January, the day of the date of his authority, or from March 1st the day of acceptance? The conscript officers contend for the first construction; Colonel Lay for the latter. If the sixty days are to be computed from January 21, then the great majority-perhaps the entire regiment of Colonel Lay-has been enlisted without authority. It is composed in great part of young men who were liable to consription and who had, to a considerable extent, left other commands, to what extent can only be ascertained by examining the descriptive list of each man and by investigation individually determining that question.

That the greatest number were induced to enlist in order to enjoy the privileges of cavarlymen and shirk duty, I am convinced. There are nor in his camp but about 150 men. The rest are loitering at home, and I am told, although no written evidence was brought before me, excuse themselves by urging that it was promised they should do so if they would enlist, and many contending that their enlistment was illegal. The regiment was made up of various organizations in process of formation at the time Colonel Lay entered upon his work, and I am convinced was not circumscribed in its recruits to the limits prescribed by General Polk. Telegrams from General Polk to Captain Miller, commanding the company known as K in the organization, authorized him to enlist men of any age within the enemy's lines. But where were the enemy's lines? Many of the recruiting officers apparently extended them as far east as any wandering tooper of the enemy had straggled. I inclose