GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 70.
Washington, March 21, 1863.

To answer the frequent inquiries made by general and other officers as to whom they shall report when newly promoted, it is hereby announced that, unless otherwise specially ordered, they will continue on duty in their respective departments or armies and will be assigned by the commanders thereof.

By command of Major-General Halleck:

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, March 21, 1863.

WILLIAM A. ADAIR, Pittsburg, pa.:

If a regiment of colored men can be raised in Pittsburg I will authorize them to have their own officers.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

Iowa City, Iowa, March 23, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to inclose and ask your attention to a copy of a proclamation this day issued by me and to a copy of a letter just received from Mr. Everett, collector of the Federal revenue in the Fifth Congressional District of this State. I am almost daily in receipt of letters from persons on the southern border of Iowa giving me information similar to that contained in the letter of Mr. Everett.

I do not think it advisable at present to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in this State, or to remove any officials, but I ask that clear and explicit instructions be sent to the U. S. district attorney and U. S. marshal for the State, and to provost-marshals appointed or to be appointed under the conscription law, to be diligent to hunt up all men in this State who have been in the rebel service or otherwise been violating the laws of the United States in Missouri and have fled to this State and are here engaged in a course of conduct dangerous to the please and good order of the State.

I also call your attention to my letter asking arms for the State and authority to organize two or three regiments as a State guard.

If these things be done, in my judgment things can be kept quiet here and the conscription enforces of orders. If not, there is real danger of difficulty, and if a conscription be ordered it must be necessary, to insure its execution and quiet in the State, to have one or more of our regiments in the field sent home.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.] PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, IOWA,

March 23, 1863.

TO THE PEOPLE OF IOWA:

There is good reason to believe that a very considerable number of men, some of, whom have been in the rebel army, and others of whom