appointed, it is not expected that any will be absent at roll-call. All who are thus absent will be considered deserters. Each company is expected to assemble at the court-house, or some other place agreed upon in the county of its location, on the day before it is necessary to start to the front at the end of the furlough, and the captain will detail men to of after and bring up the front allwho of no report. The company is expected to see to it that every man subject accompanies them back or is brought up immediately under guard. It is reported that many persons in the cities of the State have avoided service by uniting with what are usually called local companies, since the date of my proclamation of the 9th of July last ordering all the militia of the State under fifty-five years of age into active service. As it is unjust to those who have undergone the hazard and fatigue of the late campaign that these men should in this way avoid service at the point of danger, andas a distinguished judge is reported to have decided that the members of these local companies were not upon active duty and not subject to military laws as Confederate soldiers in service - which decision seems to be founded in lawand common sense - I further order that the militia who are now at the front from these counties, on their return at the expiration of their furlough, bring with them, under arrest if necessary, all persons subject who were not members of said companies on the 9th of July, together with all persons who remained at home attending to their ordinary business under Confederate exemptions or details who have not exemptions granted as above mentioned. These orders, so far as they relate to the militia now in service, will be executed by Major General G. W. Smit, who will give all orders necessary to carry them into practical effect. At the end of thirty days the division will reassemble at Macon.

JOSEPH E. BROWN.

[39.]

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Milledgeville, Ga., September 12, 1864.

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: Your letter of the 30th of last month only reached me by last mail. You refer to the fact that I have organized 10,000 of the militia of this State, and say you are instructed by the President to make requisition upon me for that number, and such other force of militia, to repel invasion, as I may be able to organize. You preface this requisition by the remark that the condition of my State, subject to formidable invasion and menaced with destructive raids in different directions by the enemy, requires the command of all the forces that can be summoned for defense. In common with the people of Georgia, I have abundant reason to regret that the President has been so late in making this discovery. This "formidable invasion" commenced inMay last and has steadily forced its way, by reason of overwhelming numbers, through the most fertile section of Georgia, till its leader is now in possession of the city of Atlanta, menacing the center of the State, threatening by his winter campaign to cut the last line of railroad tat connects Virginia and the Carolinas with Alabama and Mississippi. The President during most of the time since the campaign against Atlanta began has had at his commandsaid tonumber some 30,000 men, in Texas and Louisiana. Since the brilliant victories achieved by our armies in the latter State early in the season, this large force has had