HDQRS. COMR. FOR ORGANIZATION, U. S. COLORED TROOPS,
Nashville, September 25, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have at last obtained Governor Johnson's consent to be advertisement inclosed and have commenced recruiting with good prospects of success.

The impressment of colored men which is going on daily in an irresponsible way will help me as soon as I establish a camp and show them they are safe inside of it; they won"t be likely to desert.

The colored men here are treated like won"t be like brutes; any officer who wants them I am told, impresses on his own authority, and it is seldom they are paid. On Sunday a large number were impressed and one was shot; he died on Wednesday. I inclose the copy of a statement made to me one of them from Zenia, Ohio, taken down verbatim by my clerk. Governor Johnson disapproves of the impressment, so he told me, yet it goes on daily.

General Meighs, Quartermaster-General, passed here yesterday on his way to the front. If you will order him on his return to investigate the impressment of men, for various purposes, I think you will get some light on the subject.

Respectfully,

GEORGE L. STEARNS,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General, U. S. Volunteers,

Commissioned for Organization U. S. Colored Troops.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.] HDQRS. COMR. ORGANIZATION U. S. COLORED TROOPS, Nashville, Tenn.

Colored men in the Department of the Cumberland will be enlisted into the service of the United States as soldiers on the following terms:

First. All freemen who will volunteer.

Second. All slaves of rebel or disloyal masters who will volunteer to enlist will be free at the expiration of their term of service.

Third. All slaves of loyal citizens, with the consent of their owners, will be received into the service of the United States; such slaves will be free on the expiration of their term of service.

Fourth. Loyal masters will receive a certificate of the enlistment of their slaves, which will entitle them to payment of a sum not exceeding the bounty now provided by law for the enlistment of white recruits.

Fifth. Colored soldiers will receive clothing, rations, and $10 per mont pay; $3 per month will be deducted for clothing.

Recruiting stations are established at Nashville, Gallatin, and Murfreesborough. Other stations will be advertised when established.

GEORGE L. STEARNS,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General, U. S. Volunteers,

Commissioner for Organization U. S. Colored Troops.

[Inclosure Numbers 2.] Statement of Armstead Lewis, of Zenia, Ohio.

I went to the colored Methodist church at 11 o"clock a. m. on Sunday, September 20, 1863. After church, while on my way home, was