GENERAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 108.
Washington, December 16, 1861.

I. The Secretary of War directs that the following change be made in the uniform trousers of regimental officers and enlisted men: The cloth to be sky-blue mixture. The welt for officers and stripes for non-commissioned officers of infantry to be of dark blue.

II. Whenever enlisted men or volunteers are separated from their companies on furlough, on detached service, or in hospitals, they will be furnished by their commanding officers with descriptive lists on which will be shown all the data affecting their pay, clothing accounts, &c.

III. The numerous applications for transfer of soldiers from one regiment or company to another would if complied with cause confusion in the records and be injurious to the future interests of the soldiers themselves. Such transfers will not henceforth be made.

By command of Major-General McClellan:

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

PAYMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE, December 16, 1861.

Honorable SIMON CAMERON:

SIR: I have the honor to return herewith the resolution of the Senate of the United States of December 11, 1861, requesting the Secretary of War to communicate to the Senate whether any and what aid is rendered by the Pay Department of the Army to enable volunteers to transmit home any part of their pay, and what additional facilities may be extended for that object, and to report thereon as follows:

By a general order from the War Department, Adjutant-General's Office, dated September 19, 1861, a system of allotment rolls was adopted, to be used by the volunteers for the purpose of transmitting portions of their pay to their homes free of expense to them. This system if faithfully carried out will it is believed furnish all the facilities required.

A copy of the General Orders, Numbers 81, current series, is herewith inclosed, exciting the plan adopted.* There is one point, however, to which attention is respectfully called. Under existing laws a sutler has a prior claim on the pay of the men before the allotment, and this often sweeps off a portion or all of the share allowed by the soldier for the use of his family. A soldier makes his allotment on entering the service and before contracting a debt to the sutler, and money so assigned ought not to be diverted from the eminently proper purpose for which it is intended to satisfy the claims of sutlers, especially when these latter are so notoriously exorbitant and unjust.

BENJ. F. LARNED,

Paymaster-General.

WASHINGTON, December 16, 1861.

[General McCLELLAN:]

GENERAL: In compliance with your request I respectfully submit suggestions as to the organization required for our artillery. In doing so I think it necessary to merely indicate the causes which require a change and present the plan which would interfere the least with existing establishments.

---------------

*See September 19, p. 527.

---------------