two weeks recruiting. Our quota could be full by 1st of September, probably sooner.

J. B. TEMPLE,

President.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., August 13, 1862.

Governor WASHBURN,

Augusta, Me.:

Your dispatch of yesterday explaining your wishes in respect to voluntary enlistments in lieu of draft was received this morning. No objection is perceived to the course you indicate, but it is a matter in respect to which the Department can exercise no control. The Federal Government calls upon the State for a certain quota of soldiers. If, in answer to that call, they are furnished by the State Executive, it is immaterial whether the State procures them by draft or by volunteering to answer the call. It seems to me, therefore, that you are at liberty to furnish the men in such way as will conform to the wishes of your people and your own judgment. The call has heretofore been answered by draft, and instructions for a draft have been given; but they are to be regarded as directory, and need not be observed if the soldiers will be furnished as quickly by any other mode. With these views the call for the quota specified remains to be filled by draft, or whatever mode will produce them in the same time, the draft being the only mode by which the Federal Government can act on the subject, it being only in the power of the State to procure them by a different mode. If any further explanation is required, I shall be glad to answer any inquiry.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

BOSTON, August 13, 1862.

(Received 6 p. m.)

General C. P. BUCKINGHAM:

We have at Camp Stanton at least 3,600 men, at Camp Wool 2,500, and at Camp Cameron 1,300. This last camp is for the recruits for the old regiments, for which we have already sent 1,200. We are pressed with applications froms to send their men to our camps. I have told them to hold back for a few days, as we have no tents. I have no doubt that our quota is full for the first call, and we can send regiments on to Washington every week until our number is full. We could send to-day three full regiments, but we cannot, as there is but one paymaster and one disbursing officer in the State. The whole delay is attributable to this fact, that the U. S. officers are slow, and there are not enough of them to do their respective duties. There are thirty select men now in Boston, who have been here since Friday with their full quota of men, waiting to have them mustered in, so that they can pay them the bounty; but there is no man but one to muster them, and he takes his time, and has too much to do. Such a system of delay is enough to stop all recruiting. Why cannot each State do its own business in its own way?

WM. SCHOULER,

Adjutant-General of Massachusetts.