WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, May 16, 1863.

Governor ANDREW:

Boston:

The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts is assigned to General Hunter's command. You may make requisition upon the Quartermaster's Department for transportation and send them forward at once.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

Secretary of War.

OFFICE ACTG. ASST. PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL

OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT,

New York, May 16, 1863.

Colonel JAMES B. FRY.,

Provost-Marshal-General, Washington, D. C.;

COLONEL: The necessity of organizing and systemizing my own office and directing the organization of those of the district provost-marshals prevented me from waiting on the Governor of the State of New York with the promptness I desired. The several offices, however, having been arranged in working order, I was enabled on Thursday to proceed to Albany and have an interview with His Excellency Governor Seamer. That interview was in most respects satisfactory. I consider from the tone of his remarks that he will throw no obstacle in the way of the U. S. authorities carrying out the provisions of the act for enrolling and calling out the national forces. He feels quite sanguine that a large proportion of the two-years" men lately mustered out of the service will rejoin the Army, and he intimated that measures had already been taken to induce them and others to enlist by offering respectable bounties, the State Legislature at its late session having appropriated $3,000,000 for that purpose. The Governor alluded to a telegram from you to the effect that you estimated one regiment for three years equal to four regiments for nine months, and reasoning from this he thought that the State of New York had furnished more than the number of men by some thousands than was called for by the proclamation of the President, and further, that the State had sent off a greater number of three-years" regiments in proportion to her population than any other State in the Union. In all probability the Governor will claim, on behalf of the State,credit for all the men who appear on the rolls filed in the office of the adjutant-general of the State. It is well known that a large proportion of these men deserted before the regiments left the State and before they were mustered into the U. S. service. I would urgently recommend that if there is any difference of opinion on this subject between the State and General Government that it be definitely and, if possible, amicably adjusted as speedily as possible. Until this question is settled it is impossible to determine what proportion of the deficiency is due to each district under my charge. I informed you in a recent communication that I had received from Mr. Cisco the lists of the State enrollment for eight of the districts under my control; that for the first district not being in Mr. C.'s possession, the Governor has promised to have a copy made of it from the rolls in the State offices immediately and forwarded to me.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT NUGENT,

Colonel Sixty-ninth Regiment New York Volunteers and Acting Assistant Provost-Marshal-General.