100 infantry by special train to arrest the deserters and ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for revolution. Governor Morton is well enough to travel. Will take the evidence to Washington. The Government does not realize the imminent nature of the peril. The sooner the draft comes the better to make the rest. Under orders of General Wright, I have stopped the sale of arms in this State. I should have definite and discretionary powers in Indiana at once. The next ten days are of the utmost significance. I know the danger, and speak from actual knowledge of the organization that puts us in peril.*

H. B. CARRINGTON,

Colonel Eighteenth Infantry.

[March 19, 1863.- For General Hunter's General Orders, Numbers 24, exempting all able-bodied negroes employed by the Engineer Department on permanent fortifications from the operation of General Order, Numbers 17, &c., see Series I, Vol. XIV, P. 429.]

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 69.
Washington, March 20, 1863.

Paragraph 10 of General Orders, Numbers 36, of 1862, which authorizes the chief medical officer in each city "to employ as cooks, nurses, and attendants any convalescent, wounded, or feeble men, who can perform such duties, instead of giving them discharges," is hereby modified as follows:

At every U. S. general hospital, the feeble and wounded men, unfit fourfield duty, but not entirely disabled, instead of being discharged, will be organized and mustered in detachments, under the charge of the officers acting as military commanders, who will assign men to them from time to time, on the reports of the surgeons in charge of hospitals. From these invalid detachments the military commanders will make details for provost, hospital, and other necessary guards; for clerks, hospital attendants, nurses, cooks, and other "extra-duty" men.

The invalid detachment will be mustered and reported as detachments, and will be paid on the detachment rolls; but no extra pay will be allowed in any case.

The detachment rolls must show to what company and regiment each man properly belongs, and all assignments to them must be promptly reported to their company commanders. They are not to be dropped from the rolls of those companies, but will be reported on detached service from them.

Should any of the men become fit for duty with their regiments, they will be immediately sent to join them.

In case of a want of non-commissioned officers to give efficiency to the invalid detachments, lance appointments may be made, but without increase of pay.

By order of the Secretary of War:

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

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* In this connection see "Memorandum of condition of public affairs in Indiana," Series II, Vol. V, p. 363.

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