WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, D. C., July 17, 1863.

His Excellency Governor KIRKWOOD,

Iowa City (via Davenport):

The draft will be enforced in New York City. You need entertain no apprehensions of compromising or half way measures.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

AUGUSTA, ME., July 17, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

If the draft is successfully resisted in this State you will have the satisfaction of knowing that it is because I can obtain no ammunition for our State ordnance from Government arsenal until after the exigency has passed and troops then formally mustered in to service. See correspondence with General Ripley.

JNO. L. HODSDON,

Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, Saint Louis, July 17, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,
Secretary of War:

The State of Missouri having adopted an ordinance of emancipation, the civil tribunals being in operation in the greater part of the State, the Federal courts never having suspended their functions, and the President's proclamation of freedom never having been extended in Missouri, some questions arise as to the powers and duties of the military authorizes in this department so far as they affect the people of Missouri, and I would be pleased to have your views and instructions in regard to them, and particularly as to what authority, if any, the military may assume in respect to the slaves of loyal men, and also in respect to negroes made free by operation of the several acts of Congress.

First. Are the military authorities to determine the question of freedom or slavery under the provisions of acts of August 6, 1861, and of July 17, 1862, and to give certificates of freedom to the slaves of disloyal persons? The fourteenth section of the act of July 17, 1862, provides that-

The sixteenth section provides that-

* * * No person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretense whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or to surrender up any such person ot the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service.

This last clause, though general in its terms, would seem from the context to refer to cases of fugitive slaves escaping from one State ot another.

The new Article of War, adopted by act of March 13, 1862, forbids the use of any military force to return fugitives from labor under penalty of dismissal from the service.