IV. Hereafter all applications by general officers for the appointment either of assistant adjutants-general, or officers of the Quartermaster's or Commissary Departments, will be transmitted through the headquarters of the army to which they are attached, and will not thence be forwarded to this office unless there are no disposable staff officers of the description asked for who can be assigned by the commander of the Army to the general officer making application for them. No general officer will, therefore, be permitted to make such application while detached from, or, if newly appointed, until he shall have joined, the army with which he is to serve.

V. The only members of their staff whom general officers are authorized to take with them in future when detached from or otherwise leaving their commands are their ordinary aides-de-camp -those selected in accordance with the acts of July 22 and 29, 1861, sections 3 and 4, respectively, and of July 17, 1862, section 10.

By order of the Secretary of War:

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., December 23, 1862.

Governor MORTON,

Indianapolis:

Please accept my thanks for your kind telegram. I shall never desert my post. Of this you may be sure.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, December 24, 1862.

His Excellency RICHARD YATES,

Governor of Illinois, Chicago, Ill.:

SIR: Most of the States undertook the supervision of organizing, equipping, and sending into the field the volunteers and militia which they contributed under the several calls of the President, but all failed to make such returns as would enable this Department to ascertain the number of men and the number and kind of arms and equipments belonging to the respective regiments. Many difficulties having arisen for want of such returns, circulars were sent in October last to the Governors of the several States requesting them, respectively, to make a report giving the following among other information, viz: A list of the different regiments of infantry; a list of the different independent companies of infantry; a list of the different regiments of cavalry; a list of the different battalions of cavalry; a list of the different regiments of artillery, and a list of the different batteries of artillery now in the service of the United States from the several States, and the terms for which they enlisted, respectively; also a list of all that have been in the service of the United States from said States since May, 1861, designating each organization by its proper number or name, and stating whether it is State militia or volunteers and the term for which it enlisted, the number of privates, non- commissioned and commissioned officers of which it was composed, and the