PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, August 10, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel JAMES V. BOMFORD,

Actg. Asst. Provost-Marshal-General, Harrisburg, Pa.:

Why do you not go on drafting in the other districts for which you have received the orders?

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

OFFICE ACTG. ASST. PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

FOR STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Harrisburg, August 10, 1863.

Colonel J. B. FRY, U. S. Army,

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

The Eighth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth District have postponed the draft on account of mistakes in the quotas. The orders for draft have been or will be returned for correction. The other districts are drawing or preparing for the draft. Although frequently ordered, they do not make punctually the daily report of condition and progress.

J. V. BOMFORD,

Lieutenant Colonel 16th U. S. Infty., A. A. P. M. G. for Pennsylvania.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, August 11, 1863.

His Excellency HORATIO SEYMOUR,

Governor of New York:

Yours of the 8th, with Judge-Advocate-General Waterbury's report, was received to-day. Asking you to remember that I consider time as being very important, both to the general cause of the country and to the soldiers already in the field, I beg to remind you that I waited, at your request, from the 1st till the 6th instant to receive your communication dated the 3rd. In views of this great length and the known time and apparent care taken in its preparation I did not doubt that it contained your full case as you desired to present it. It contained figures for twelve districts, omitting the other nineteen, as I supposed, because you found nothing to complain of as to them. I answered accordingly. In doing so I laid down the principle to which I purpose adhering, which is to proceed with the draft, at the same time employing infallible means to avoid any great wrongs. With the communication received to-day you send figures for twenty- eight districts, including the twelve sent before, and still omitting three, from which I suppose the enrollments are not yet received. In looking over the fuller list of twenty-eight districts I find that the quotas for sixteen of them are above 2,000 and below 2,700, while of the rest six are above 2,700 and six are below 2,000. Applying the principle to these new facts, the Fifth and Seventh Districts must be added to the four in which the quotas have already been reduced to 2,200 for the first draft, and with these four others must be added to those to be re-enrolled. The corrected case will then stand: The quotas of the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Districts fixed at 2,200 for the first draft. The Provost-Marshal-General informs