recruitment will be carried on under the existing regulations governing the recruiting service.

I have the honor, &c.,

J. B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

NASHVILLE, TENN., September 23, 1863.

His Excellency A. LINCOLN:

If we were authorized to offer $300 in addition to the present bounty to loyal masters consenting to their slaves entering the service of the United States it would be an entering wedge to emancipation, and for the time paralyze much opposition to recruiting slaves in Tennessee, the slave to receive all other pa and his freedom at the expiration of term of service. If a white man pays his $300 for his substitute, he need not care whether he is white or black. This would relieve the loyal owners and punish the rebels and traitors, for as to his slaves we should ask no questions nor make any promises.

ANDREW JOHNSON,

Military Governor.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, in my proclamation of the 27th of April, 1861, the ports of the States of Virginia and North Carolina were, for reasons therein set forth, placed under blockade; and whereas, the port of Alexandria, Va., has since been blockaded, but as the blockade of said port may now be safely relaxed with advantage to the interest of commerce:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, pursuant to the authority in my vested by the fifth section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July, 1861, entitled " An act further to provide for the collection of the duties on imports, and for other purposes, " do hereby declare that the blockade of the said port of Alexandria shall so far cease and determine, from and after this date, that commercial intercourse with said port, except as to persons, things, and information contraband of war, may from this date be carried, on subject to the laws of the Unites States and to the limitations and in pursuance of the regulations which are prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury in his order which is appended to my proclamation of the 12th of May, 1862. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washingt of September, in the year of our Lord 1863 and of the Independence of the United States the eighth-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.