what may be considered a good cause for absence. Surgeon's certificates of disability, required by existing orders and regulations, must be forwarded not only to the Adjutant-General of the Army, but also to the commander of the regiment, or, in case of a staff officer, to his commanding general.

II. Officers absent from duty without leave or beyond the time of their leaves will not be allowed to draw pay until a court or commission, which will be ordered on their return to their post or command, shall determine whether there was sufficient cause for their absence. They will accordingly provide themselves with a full description of the nature and cause of their disability, certified by the proper medical authority, as required by existing orders and regulations.

III. Officers of volunteers who are absent from duty on account of disease contracted before they entered service will be immediately mustered out. Those who have been absent for more than sixty days on account of wounds or disease contracted in the line of their duty, and who are still unable to return to duty, will be reported to the Adjutant-General of the Army for discharge, in order that their places may be filled by others fit for field service. For this class of officers Congress has provided pensions.

IV. Applications for pensions must be made to the Commissioner of Pensions, who is the judge of the sufficiency of evidence in support of such claims, and who furnishes the forms and regulations relating thereto.

V. When an officer returns to this command after having overstaid his leave of absence he may be tried by a court-martial for this as a military offense, or a commission may be appointed by the commanding officer of his division, army corps, or army, as the case may be, to investigate his case and to determine whether or not he was absent from proper cause; and if there should be found to be such proper cause he will be entitled to pay during such absence. The proceedings of such commission will be sent to the Adjutant-General of the Army for the approval of the Secretary of War. Such commissions will consist of not less than three nor over five commissioned officers.

VI. Where troops are serving in an army corps or an army no leaves of absence will be granted on the certificate of a regimental or brigade surgeon till the same has been approved by the medical director of such army corps or army; and no medical director will indorse any certificate until he has made a personal examination of the applicant, or received a favorable report from a medical officer appointed by him to make such personal examination. And if upon such personal examination it be found that the certificate of disability was given without proper cause, the name of the medical officer giving it will be reported to the Adjutant-General of the Army in order that he may be dismissed from the service.

VII. Where officers are not serving in a division, army corps, or separate army application for leaves may be made to the Adjutant- General of the Army, but, except in very extraordinary cases, no leave of absence will be granted unless the application be accompanies by a certificate of the same character as that prescribed in General Orders, Numbers 61.

VIII. In all cases of personal application for leaves of absence made to the War Department the applicant will be examined by a medical officer assigned to that duty in this city.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.