[Inclosure Numbers 2.] WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., August 7, 1863.

Major F. TOWNSEND,

Actg. Asst. Prov. March General, Schenectady, N. Y.:

If you think best, go on with the draft. I will dispatch Governor Seymour.

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL, SOUTHERN DIVISION OF NEW YORK,

New York, August 27, 1863.

Colonel JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General:

COLONEL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of telegram, this p. m. instructing me to notify the Governor of the State of the precise time when the draft will commence in each of the districts, and to say in reply that I have so informed the Governor and also instructed the provost-marshals of the First, Third, and Second Districts to do likewise, these being the only districts in this division where the drawing has not taken place with the exception of the Tenths, where the enrollment is incomplete.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT NUGENT,

Colonel Sixty-ninth N. Y. Vols. and Actg. Asst. Prov. March General

PRIVATE.] WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., August 27, 1863.

MY DEAR CONKING: I cannot leave here now. Herewith is a letter instead. You are one of the best public readers. I have but one suggestion - read it very slowly. And now God bless you, and all good Union men.

Yours, as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

[Inclosure.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, August 26, 1863.

Honorable JAMES C. CONKING:

MY DEAR SIR: Your letter, inviting me to attend a mass meeting of Unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the 3rd day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me, to thus meet my old friends, at my own home; but I cannot, just now, be absent from here, so long as a visit there, would require.

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the Nation's gratitude to those other noble men, whom no partisan malice, or partisan hope, can make false to the Nation's life.