NINE-MONTHS.

Due:

Quota................................................ 4,898

Furnished:

By statement May 14.................................. 4,781

By examination of records of nine-months" regiments

and not previously credited.......................... 63

Deficiency........................................... 54

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Total................................................ 4,898

NOTE.- 54 nine-months" = 13 1/2 three-years". Excess of three- years" and deficiency nine-months" therefore balanced.

THOMAS BM. VINCENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

August 26, 1863.

CIRCULAR
WAR DEPT., PROV. March GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 78.
Washington, D. C., August 27, 1863.

The following opinions of Colonel Joseph Holt, Judge-Advocate- General, are published for the information and guidance of all officers of this Bureau.

With regard to the residence of a widow who is aged or infirm, and desires to have one of her two sons subject to draft exempted.

Opinion.- The right of a widow who is aged or infirm to have one her two sons subject to draft exempted does not depend, under the law, on the place of her residence. The act imposes no such restriction. Such a mother's claim to be supported by one of her sons, and the moral obligation of the son to furnish such support, are recognized as resting on sympathies inseparable from the race and Honorable to it, and which are to be respected irrespective of State or national lines. Should one of these two sons not be subject to draft, the other cannot be exempted unless his widowed mother is dependent on his labor for her support.

In the case of two or more sons of aged or infirm parents subject to draft not of one household.

Opinion.- Under the fourth clause section of the enrollment act it is not necessary that the two or more sons of aged or infirm parents subject to draft should be of one household in order to entitle the parent or parents to elect one of them for exemption. The practical operation of this clause is certainly open to abuses and frauds, which the boards should guard against as best they can. It would be a justifiable precaution in such cases to require the parent making the election to accompany it with an affidavit that no claim to exemption has been preferred by him or her, on behalf of either of the other sons. This would probably protected the Government from the fraud of having more than one exemption claimed where the sons resident in different States, or within the jurisdiction of different boards of enrollment.

Boards of enrollment will, in the case referred to, require the affidavit suggested by the Judge-Advocate-General.

In the case of parents having one son in the Army and one at home, and are not dependent on the labor of the latter for their support.

Opinion.- If parents have one son in the Army and one at home, and are not dependent on his labor for their support, the son at home cannot be exempted. The right of aged or infirm parents to elect which of two sons be exempt exists only when both of these to elect which of two sons shall be exempt exists only when both of these sons are subject to draft, which is certainly not the case when one is already in the service.