regiment for the Regular Army, in order to have justice done to the officers, and also to leave me at liberty to appoint competent men as line officers, although they might not have been engaged in recruiting for the regiment. Government, however, refused to accede to my terms unles she regiments should be complete within thirty days. With this understanding and under this rule recruiting officers have ben appointed by me for the new regiment, and they will strive to get the regiment complete within the time limited. Unless the Government should, therefore, deem it necessary to call for another regiment from our State, I should consider it unjust to the officers engaged in the organization of the Twentieth to authorize the raising of a independent regiment, which would of course have a tendency much to protract the completion of the Twentieth.

Our State has sent about 24,000 men into the field (more than its quota). By a former order recruiting was prohibited entirely and men turned heir minds to other pursuits. Recruiting is not now so easy as it has heretofore been, although I am well convinced that if the Government should have occasion to call upon our State in a new emergency the patriotic men from Wisconsin would answer with the same alacrity they have heretofore evinced. In addition to the Twentieth Regiment, I expect every dacers from our regiments in the Army of the Mississippi. General Halleck informed me some weeks ago that he should soon send such recruiting officers, his regiments having been much decimated by sickness and other causes. It seems to met that it would be better policy to fill up those regiments before undertaking the organization of a new and independent one.

By the laws of our State the family of every soldier dependent upon him receives a bounty of $5 per month, but this by an act of the Legislature last winter was limited to the regiments then in process of organization or already in the field. The Legislature is now here assembled in an adjourned session on some special matters. I have appealed to them to extend this State bounty to the Twentieth Regiment, and am in hopes they will do so. This extra pay is a very heavy burned to our State, and I am well convinced, should I authorize the organization of a new and independent regiment without a call for if from the Government, the Legislature would adhere to the law of last winter and refuse to extend it. Without such an extension, however, the recruiting of the Twentieth or any new regiment would be extremely difficult.

Permit me in conclusion to add, that from the experience have had in the organization of an independent regiment, the Nineteenth Infantry, I am opposed to that mode of raising troops. The Executive is held and considered responsible for the appointment of officers of such a regiment to the same extent as for others, and yet he is not as much at liberty to select the persons as the colonel who has the responsibility of raising the regiment ought in a measure to be entitled to dictated the other appointments. Much trouble has arisen from the organization of the Nineteenth (independent) Regiment, and I would therefore prefer to have that mode of organizing regiments cease in our State. This must not be understood as any disparagement on my part of Major Charles H. Larrabee, but simply an opposition to the system, y reason will apy to you.

With great respect, your obedient servant,

EDWARD SALOMON.