(Indorsement.)

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Boston, October 21, 1861.

Received this day, and respectfully referred to the attorney- general for answer.

By order of the Governor:

A. G. BROWNE, JR.,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Military Secretary.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

October 23, 1861.

His Honor B. C. SARGENT,

Mayor of Lowell:

SIR: His Excellency Governor Andrew has referred to me for answer your letter of the 18th, in which you inquire whether men enlisted in General Butler's brigade are entitled to the benefits of the act in aid of the families of volunteers. In my opinion all volunteers who are inhabitants of this State and enlist in Massachusetts regiments should receive the benefits of this statute, and it includes all regiments raised in this State under the authority of the Governor, the officers of which are by his commissioned. If General Butler's brigade is to be so raised and so commissioned, then its soldiers will be mustered into and enlisted in the service of the United States within the fair meaning of the language of the first section "as members of the volunteer militia of the State." I suppose this will be the case, and therefore that the men enlisted by him will be entitled to the usual aid. And I only state my opinion in this guarded form because of the possible, but highly improbable, contingency of volunteers being enlisted in full regiments in Massachusetts without the sanction of its Executive, the officers of which he might decline to commission or recognize.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

DWIGHT FOSTER.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

October 23, 1861.

Honorable B. C. SERGEANT,

Mayor of Lowell:

MY DEAR SIR: The Order Numbers 23 applies to al persons professing to recruit under whatever authority for any regiments other than those therein designated. I put at Major General B. F. Butler's disposal the Twenty-sixth Regiment and the Twenty- eighth, and desired all the influence he could bring to bear upon recruiting should be made to avail for the benefit of these corps until they should be filled. They, as yet, are not full. I understand that persons-acting under his supposed authority, but wholly in defiance of my explicit statement to that gentleman of my own wish and purpose-assume to enlist men into other, or for other, organizations not included in Order Numbers 23; thus introducing more competition, when we had already strained the recruiting as far as it was prudent, and thus putting back some ten infantry, cavalry, and artillery corps in progress. If General Butler favors these persons I am equally pained and surprised. It is certainly without right and without authority, detrimental to the service, and tending to some breach between himself and me, when we ought to

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