On the 22nd of November I addressed from my office in New York the following circular to all the assistant provost-marshals. I have received reports in answer from eighteen of them, which I think is a good evidence of their attention to the duties of their office:

OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL, WAR DEPARTMENT,

November 22, 1862.

PROVOST-MARSHAL IN ---:

SIR: You will please send me, as soon as possible after receipt of this, information as follows: First, state the date of your appointment and of its receipt by you; second, the number of deserters arrested by you; third, the number of persons arrested by you for other causes than desertion, if any; fourth, the disposition made of persons arrested; fifth, the amount of expenses incurred by you since your appointment.

From reports furnished to me by colonels of regiments and commandants of military posts and other officers I learn that a very large proportion, probably exceeding 10 per cent. in all the States and as high as 25 [per] cent. in some of them, of the new levies have deserted, and that upward of 100,000 men are absent without leave and subject to be treated as deserters. Nearly all of these men have received bounties; many of them have received bounties, deserted, re-enlisted, and deserted several times. Frauds to an enormous amount have been committed upon the Federal and State Governments and upon individuals in connection with the bounty system.

It has not been practicable for me, in the absence of any adequate provision for assistance in men and of any means to defray expenses, to accomplish as much toward the correction of these evils as I desired.

I will proceed to state briefly what has been accomplished.

Upward of 3,000 deserters have been arrested and returned to their regiments in the Eastern States. The number arrested in the Western States I am not able to state, as it has not been fully reported to me as yet; it is probably as large as in the East.

About 200 persons have been arrested by the special provost- marshals appointed by you upon other charges, viz, aiding soldiers to desert, stealing and buying stolen Government property, resisting drafting officers, rioting, & c.

Upward of fifty cases involving legal questions have been investigated in my office.

A system of investigation into frauds upon the Government has been instituted. A number of persons have been arrested for frauds upon soldiers.

In all my operations I have carefully avoided anything that might tend to provoke a conflict with the civil authorities or to excite in the minds of the public any apprehensions with respect to an infringement of the personal rights of the citizen.

It is natural and right for a free people to be jealous on this subject, and their sensibilities should be regarded, not only because it is just to do so, but because to disregard them tends to weaken the sympathies which should exist between the people and their governmental agents.

Under your orders I caused to be seized on the Northern frontier upward of 14,000 muskets which were being sent from New York to Quebec.

Unless immediate measures are taken to secure the return to the Army of the large number of deserters I have referred to, the necessity of which is fully stated in your late report to the President, the deplorable fact will have an injurious effect upon the public mind no