I confess that upon reading yours of the 27th September (which has been published in the newspapers) I was greatly surprised at its contents. In my letter to which it purports to be an answer I had spoken of a particular body of troops raised by me under an agreement with the President and referring you to the terms of that agreement. I asked the question whether they were to be regarded as State troops or U. S. troops. I asserted that they were to be regarded as State troops or U. S. troops. I asserted that they were State troops. In your answer you proceed to show that militia called into the service of the United States are to be officered by the State according to the organizations called for, but may be commanded by officers of a higher grade or higher organization belonging to either the regular or volunteer service of the united States. That is, if the call upon the State be for regiments the State authorities commission the officers of the regiments, but the brigade commanders are designated by the President under law. The principle you assume would, in its application to a call for militia by brigades, allow the State authorities to appoint brigadiers, leaving division commanders to be designated by the President.

You proceed at some length to show the great inconveniences, if not absurdities, resulting from any other rule for the command of the militia in the service of the United States, and finally you apply the rule to the particular force about which I asked the question, by assuming that the force is in the service of the United States.

The surprise produced by your reply, general, was not on account of the novelty of your positions, but on account of their utter irrevelancy to the question which I had submitted to your consideration. I never drity of U. S. generals to command regiments of militia called into the service of the United States as regiments. My question concerned a special corps of militia raised under a special agreemeident, in relation to which I sought no other advantage than that the expense should be borne by the United States, because the State could not meet it. It was but natural that I should except that my question- whether this corps raised under the agreement is a U. s. force or a State force-should be answered by an examination and construction of the written agreement.

That agreement is in the form of a proposal by the Governor to raise a force of State militia for the declared purpose of co- operation with the troops in the service of the United States in repelling invasion and suppressing insurrection within the State. The purpose of co-operations with troops in the service of the United States clearly indicates that the force to be raised is not itself in that service. Moreover, it is stipulated that the force to be raised 'shall be ordered by the Governor to co- operate with the troops in the service of the United States in military operations." Can it have been the understanding of the parties that this force which was to co-operate with troops in the service of the united States, and w as to be ordered by the Governor thus to co-operate, was itself to be in the service of the United States? It is impossible to believe it. It is provided that in case of such union of the two descriptions of forces "the combined force" shall be commanded by the U. s. officer. Are the two forces, thus combined, both in the service of the United States? If so, what is the sense of the stipulation?

The force to be raised by the Governor as State militia is "to be held in he camp and in the field, drilled, disciplined, and governed according to the Army Regulations and subject to the Articles of War." If the force is to be in the service of the United States this