contributions heretofore made by the respective States, I address you for the purpose of informing you of the difficulties under which the authorities of this State labor in endeavoring to ascertain the number of soldiers furnished by Kansas, and to give you, if possible, and adequate idea of the extent of our contributions. It is possible, indeed, that the records, which are incomplete in this department, are complete in the office of the Adjutant-General of the Army. If so, Kansas need feel no apprehension if, as is generally through to be the case, her full quota of men has been furnished. Fearing, however, that such is not the case, and being assured that a portion of the people of the state believe it to be the duty of this department to furnish the statistics upon which he number assigned for conscription is to be based, I have deemed it not improper to address you this letter. One serious obstacle which stood in the way of my predecessor in his efforts to secure and preserve a complete record of the regiments that were organized during his incumbency arose from the fact that several of those regiments were organized directly by Federal authority; that while the Governor commissioned the officers, the work of perfecting the several organizations was left to the agents of the Government, and there being at that time no law requiring muster-in rolls and regimental reports to be filed in this department, the regiments were removed from the State without leaving the State authorities any record of their numbers. I have observed that this difficulty has also been experienced in some of the other States.

General Orders, Numbers 18, Adjutant-General's Office, dated February 21, 1862, provided that "the governors of the States are legally the authorities for raising volunteer regiments and commissioning their officers." This order was intended to remove the obstacles which had complicated recruiting operations in the several States, and would probably have done so had it been strictly observed. General Orders, Numbers 75, dated July 8, 1862, said:

II. Officers will be mustered into the service only on the authority of the Governor of the State to which their regiments belong.

III. Until regiments are organized and their muster-rolls completed they will be under the exclusive control of the Governors of the States, &c.

These orders were in accordance with existing laws and were manifestly just, both to the General Government and the several States. Since their issued, however, in exceptional and isolate cases, which have occurred only in this State, authority has been given to parties other than the Governor to recruit, organize, and nominate officers of regiments. This, it cannot be denied, has tended to embarrass military operations in the State. The authority so given being exclusive and original, the usual regulations governing the recruiting service were relaxed, and neither descriptive papers, muster-in rolls, nor reports of any character were filed in this department. Three regiments were thus organized during the latter part of the summer of 162 by Honorable J. H. Lane, under the authority of the War Department. These regiments were numbered, respectively, the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth. Although neither of these were reported to this department at the time of their organization, the muster- in-rolls of the Eleventh and Twelfth (except Company A) have recently been received. The Thirteenth has never forwarded its rolls.

For recruiting purposes the State of Kansas and the Territories of Nebraska, Dakot, and Colorado comprised one district, in which the "commissioner" was to operate under his special authority. It is well know that the Governor of Nebraska refused to allow the citizens of the Territory to be enlisted under that authority, and the