count, and make returns to you of the votes and of the persons elected. The returns will be opened by you and you will make proclamation of the persons elected, notifying them to appear at the time and place of holding the convention.

Fifth. Further instructions will be given, if required, in the course of these proceedings.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

PRIVATE AND ACCIDENTAL.] EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, August 24, 1863.

[Colonel FRY:]

MY DEAR COLONEL: The inevitable Waterbury is again upon us. He has changed his base, he don"t like the way the thing is done.

His experience as a political ballot staffer for twenty years comes up and troubles his dreams. He is afraid you are stuffing the draft on him.

read his wail of you don"t think life is too short and Lee too near. If you do, file it.

With a firm reliance on providence and your waste-paper basket, you cannot fail.

I am going to sea-shore; burst not with envy.

Yours, hilariously,

JOHN HAY.

[Inclosure.]

STATE OF NEW YORK, JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT,

New York, August 19, 1863.

His Excellency ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

President of the United States:

SIR: In accordance with the wish you expressed when I saw you I inclose a printed copy of my report to His Excellency the Governor of the State of New York in relation to the enrollment under the conscription act.* He transmitted a manuscript copy to you, but the one I send is more convenient for reference, and i desire to recall some of its suggestions for your consideration.

Your Excellency will perceive that I did not fail to do full justice in the report to your assurances that the conscription should in every respect be fairly conducted. Having been liberal enough, notwithstanding my sympathy with that portion of my fellow-citizens who disapprove the policy of your Administration, to receive those assurances with entire confidence, I am entitled to ask that they shall be redeemed. In expressing my conviction that the rule adopted by the Provost-Marshal-General, sustained as it was by your assurances, would remedy the injustice of the enrollment, I added, as a necessary qualification, in case the names should be fairly drawn. The journals in the interest of your Administration did not fail to seize upon my statements in relation to yourself and Colonel Fry as representing sufficient relief from the injustice of the enrollment, nor to garnish their comments with abuse of myself for making an exposition which they claimed was thereby shown to be unnecessary. I was content to

---------------

* See inclosure, Seymour to Lincoln, August 8, p. 640.

---------------