WAR DEPARTMENT, May 18, 1861.

General DANIEL E. SICKLES:

SIR: I have been instructed by the President to say that the five regiments from the city of New York forming your brigade are accepted for the war, and are included in the order for the fourteen regiments from the State of New York, made the 15th day of May, A. D. 1861.

Yours, truly,

SIMON CAMERON,

Secretary of War.

HDQRS. ILLINOIS VOLUNTEER MILITIA, FIRST BRIGADE, Camp Defiance, Cairo, Ill., May 19, 1861.

Honorable A. LINCOLN,
President of the United States:

SIR: I am authorized by the colonels of regiments constituting the First Brigade of Illinois Volunteers, now in service of the General Government, to tender their services with the command to you for the war or for three years. I deem it my duty to say to you that as the call has been made for more force from this State, and we having been mustered in for three months, having been uniformed and equipped, we should be pleased to hear that we are to be accepted. I therefore make the tender to you of the First Brigade of Illinois Volunteers, which I have the honor to command.

Very respectfully,

B. M. PRENTISS,

Brigadier-General.

(Same to Simon Cameron, Secretary of War.)

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, May 19, 1861.

His Excellency the GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK,
Albany, N. Y.:

The President having accepted the fourteen regiments of long-term volunteers equipped by the New York Committee of Safety, in addition to the thirty-eight tendered directly by Your Excellency, exclusive of the three-months' men now here and the fourteen having been called to this place and Fort Monroe, I will ask that six of the thirty-eight regiments be also sent here as soon as equipped, and the remainder of the two-years' regiments be assembled at rendezvous, to become camps of instruction, in Northern and (preferably) Western New York. These Your Excellency best can choose. A rolling surface or porous soil should be chosen. Other conditions are proximity to wood, water, abundant subsistence for men and horses, and railroad or canal transportation. Each camp should be the rendezvous of four or eight regiments. As most of these regiments are not likely to take the field much before frost, they will have ample time for the discipline and tactical instructions, without which they would be unequal to the campaign for which they are intended.

Very respectfully, &c.,

WINFIELD SCOTT.