GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 223.
Washington, July 17, 1863.

To facilitate the organization of the Signal Corps, War Department General Orders, Numbers 106, of 1863, will be modified as follows:

The Signal Officer of the Army will immediately detach five officers of the grade of captain from those that have already been examined and approved and order them to report in person at the headquarters of the Departments of North Carolina, of the South, of the Gulf, of the Cumberland, and of the Tennessee, respectively.

On the arrival of these officers at the headquarters to which they are assigned the commander of the department will immediately assemble an examining board of not less than three nor more than five members, of which the signal officer assigned above and a medical officer shall be members, for the examination of the acting signal officers serving in the department, and such other persons as may be properly bought before it as candidates for appointment in the Signal Corps. The examination will be conducted as prescribed in the General orders, Numbers 106, above cited, and weekly reports of the proceedings of each board will be made, through the Signal Officer of the Army, to the Secretary of War; and at the conclusion of the examination a special report exhibiting the relative standing of each officer in the grade to which he has been recommended will beamed to the Central Board in this city.

The examining boards will hold their sessions at such times and places as may enable them most promptly to discharge their duties. Offices of the acting signal corps will be examined in such order as the interests of the service will permit.

Applications to appear before the boards must be made in writing, and no application will be considered unless by the special authority of the Secretary of War, or, in the case of acting signal officer,s it is with the approval of the colonel commanding the corps.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CIRCULAR
WAR DEPT., PROV. March GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 47.
Washington, D. C., July 17, 1863.

I. Drafted men become soldiers in the service of the United States by the fact of their names having been drawn in the draft. The notification, served upon them by the provost-marshal, is merely an announcement of the fact, and an order for them to report for duty at a designated time and place.

II. The following opinion of the Honorable William Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, is published for the information of all concerned:

When a person has been drafted, in pursuance of the enrollment act of March 3, 1863, notice of such draft must be served within ten days thereafter by a written or pointed notice, to be served on him personally or by leaving a copy at his last place of residence, requiring him to appear at a designated rendezvous to report for duty. Any person failing to report for duty after notice left at his last place of residence, or served on him personally, without furnishing a substitute or paying $3,000, is pronounced by law to be a deserter. He may be arrested and held for trial by court-martial and sentenced to death.

If a person after being drafted and before receiving notice deserts, the notice may still be served by leaving it at his last place of residence, and if he does not appear in accordance with the notice or furnish the substitute or pay the $300, he will be in law a deserter, and must be treated accordingly. There is no way or