ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., August 9, 1862.

Major-General McCLELLAN,

Army of the Potomac:

Have all volunteer regimental bands in your command mustered out of service at once. Enlisted men detached from companies to serve in said bands will not be mustered out. They will return to their companies. Not enlisted as musicians, they cannot be discharged as such. Each brigade is now allowed a band of sixteen musicians, with same pay and allowances as now provided for regimental bands, except leader, who will receive $45 per month with allowances of quartermaster-sergeant. With their own consent, musicians of regimental bands may be transferred on present enlistment to brigade bands, at discretion of brigade commanders.

By order:

T. M. VINCENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

(Same to commanding generals Army of the Ohio, Huntsville, Ala., and Department of the Mississippi, at Corinth, or wherever he now is; Major-General Pope, commanding Army of Virginia; Major- General Wool, Baltimore, Md., and Major-General Dix, Fort Monroe, Va.)

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., August 9, 1862.

Commanding GENERAL DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI:

Cause all battalion adjutants of volunteer cavalry regiments in your command to be mustered out of service at once. Also muster out all battalion quartermasters of volunteer cavalry in excess of lawful organization.

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

(Same to commanding generals Department of the Ohio, Huntsville, Ala.; Army of the Potomac; Army of Virginia; Major-General Wool, Baltimore, Md., and Major-General Dix, Fort Monroe, Va.)

PITTSBURG, August 9, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON:

I have just received the news which Mr. Scott communicated to you relative to exempting railway employes from military draft. The plan seems to me a judicious one if some plan is adopted by which you can make the presidents of the several railway corporations directly responsible to the War Department. There are certain skilled men in all departments of railway management that cannot be replaced if withdrawn by a draft, and the consequences must be a weak and feeble management of the railways, upon which the War Department depends for an efficient prosecution of the war. The excitement along my entire line, running through four States, is now intense, and must in a few days, if continued, result in stopping some of our trains.

G. W. CASS.