defense and local service for the war with the obligation of service as the general rule throughout the State, to constitute a part of the Provisional Army, and to be subject to the call of the President when needed." If this statement means anything, it is intended to mean that the call was made on me for the troops to serve for the war, with obligation, as the general rule, to do service throughout the State. That is what you now say. What did you then say? I quote from your requisition of 6th June, 1863. "The President has therefore determined to make a requisition on the Governors of the several States to furnish by an appointed time, for service within the State and for the limited period of six months, a number of men," &c. Again, in the same requisition, you say, "I am instructed by the President, in his name, to make on you a requisition for 8,000 men, to be furnished by your State for the period of six months from the 1st day of August the law for local defense and special service to his call for service within your State."

This does not look much as if the call was made for troops for the war. Was it for troops to serve as the general rule throughout the State? I quote from the same document. You say "It becomes essential that the reserves of our population capable of bearing arms, &c., and in repelling in emergencies the sudden or transient incursions of the enemy." Again, "Local organizations or enlistments by volunteering for limited periods and special purposes, if they can be induced, would afford more assurance of prompt and efficient action." You then refer to the two acts of Congress for local defense and special service, and inclose copies of them and call my attention to them. And you proceed to say, "Under the former of these if organizations could be effected with the limitations prescribed in their must-rolls of service only at home or at specified points of importance within the particular State, they would be admirably adapted to obtain the desired end."In speaking of the inducements to be held out to those who will form volunteer companies under the act of Congress, you speak of them as "organizations for special service within the State, under officers of their own selection, and with the privilege of remaining at home in the pursuit of their ordinary avocations, unless when called for a temporary exigency to active duty." In reference to the service to be performed by these organizations you then use this language: "Without the general distrubance of a call on the militia the organizations nearest to the points of attack would always be readily summoned to meet the emergency and the population resident in cities and their vicinities would, without serious interruption to their business or domestic engagements, stand organized and prepared to man their intrenchments and defend under the most animating incitements their property and homes." You remark again, "After the most active and least needed portion of the reserves were embodied under the former law, the latter would allow smaller organizations with more limited range of service for objects of police and the pressing contingencies of neighborhood defense. Could these laws be generally acted on, it is believed as full organizations of the reserve population would be secured for casual needs as would be practicable."

There is not a word in any of this about service as the general rule throughout the State. But every expression looks to local and limited services in sudden emergencies, such as the sudden incursions of the