not be prepared to draft for three weeks to come. Your consent is absolutely necessary to aid us in completing the volunteer regiments. Please answer soon as possible.

J. T. LEWIS,

Acting Governor.

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 151.
Washington, October 4, 1862.

* * * * *

II. If any officer shall hereafter, without proper authority, permit the publication of any official letter or report, or allow any copy of such document to pass into the hands of persons not authorized to receive it, his name will be submitted to the President for dismissal. This rule applies to all official letters and reports written by an officer himself.

By order of the Secretary of War:

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

OCTOBER 4, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: I have received through the Adjutant-General the following order in relation to a deduction of $5 per month from the wages of colored teamsters and laborers in the District of Columbia and Alexandria, viz:*

I have given the necessary directions to effect the object of the order by letters addressed to Colonel Rucker and General Ingalls, chief quartermaster, dated October 1, 1862.

In connection with this subject I respectfully call the attention of the Department to sections 12, 13, and 15 of the act of Congress approved July 17, 1862, of the Pamphlet Laws, viz:#

There were a large number so employed before the enactment of this law, who have received wages such as were given to white teamsters and laborers. Teamsters generally receive in this neighborhood $25 per month and a ration. Some of them are freemen, some of them freed by the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, many doubtless are fugitives from within the lines of rebellion, and entitled to their freedom under acts of Congress.

They have not been employed, however, generally, under the act referred to. They have not been mustered or enrolled, or sworn into service as soldiers are for a long period of enlistment. They were hired by special agreement or contract in each case as white teamsters or other employes of the Quartermaster's Department upon such terms as were sufficient to secure their services.

The number is large and the reduction of their wages is considerable, and it is important to them. At this place we find to this time no surplus of this sort of labor, and if it is decided that this law applies to them and requires this reduction of their pay to $10 a month it will produce much dissatisfaction and suffering, and will probably deprive the Government of the services of a large portion of them.

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*For letter (here omitted) see September 27, p. 589.

#For the sections (here omitted) see General Orders, Numbers 91, July 29, p. 281.

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