HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW ENGLAND, Boston, December 20, 1861.

The officers above named are approved by me and recommended for commissions for their respective places. Companies I and K are recruited but not yet organized, the officers having charge of them not yet being approved.

B. F. BUTLER,
Major-General, Commanding.

CAVALRY.

Rank. Name and address.

FIRST COMPANY.

Captain. Samuel T. Read, Attleborough, Mass.

First lieutenant. Jonathan E. Cowan, Fairhaven, Mass.

Second lieutenant. Benjamin Pickman, Salem.

SECOND COMPANY.

Captain. James M. Magee, Carlisle, Pa.

First lieutenant. Albert G. Bowles, Boston.

Second lieutenant. Picketing D. Allen, Salem.

THIRD COMPANY.

Captain. Henry A. Durivage, Waltham.

First lieutenant. Solon A. Perkins, Lowell.

Second lieutenant. Edward E. H. Sturtevant, Charlestown.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Boston, December 27, 1861.

Brigadier General LORENZO THOMAS,

Adjutant-General U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 23rd instant, inclosing a list of names of persons entitled a "Roster of the Eastern Bay State Regiment, Numbers 2," for which persons, by direction of the Secretary of War, you request me to issue commissions to various military grades from lieutenant-colonel to lieutenant.

I beg to suggest to you that if there is any body of troops in Massachusetts over which commissioned officers should be appointed by me, a more proper method of procedure on the part of the Secretary would be to bring that fact to my notice and to request me to issue commissions in accordance with the terms of the act of Congress, making at the same time any recommendations according to his pleasure instead of, as in the present instance, transmitting a definite list of persons and requesting me to commission them and none other, thereby appearing to assume that the duty of the Governor of this Commonwealth in respect to commissioning officers is only ministerial and not discretionary and judicial in respect to the character and qualifications of persons nominated. But, passing this point entirely and passing also the omission on the part of your communication to state that there is any body of regularly enlisted troops now in this State over whom officers should be appointed, I assume that you refer to the irregular troops which Major-General Butler has collected in the neighborhood of the city of Lowell. By previous correspondence which I have addressed to the Secretary of War and to yourself, you are aware that these troops have been collected illegally and in contempt of orders of the War Department as well as of my authority and to the detriment and confusion of no less than ten of the volunteer regiments which have been organized by this State for the Federal service.