nate and set a part Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation,f acting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day form their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public workship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then reset humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less that the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be afflized.

Done at the city of Washington this 30th day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Untied States the eighty-seventh.

[L. C.]

By the President:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 80.
Washington, March 31, 1863.

It is hereby ordered that all surgeons and assistant surgeons belonging to regiments, who are absent on any other than regimental duty, shall without delay rejoin their regiments. Medical officers of regiments will not hereafter be detached upon other service, except temporarily in cases of necessity, or where the surgeon and two assistant surgeons are present, when one of the assistants may be detached to hospital duty.

By order of the Secretary of War;

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

ORDNANCE OFFICE, Washington, March 31, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: In compliance with the acts of April 21, 1808, and March 3, 1909, I have the honor to transmit herewith statements of the contracts and purchases made by this office during the year 1862.

Respectfully, 7c.,

JAS. W. RIPLEY,

Brigadier-General, Chief of Ordnance.