STATE OF MAINE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Augusta, October 24, 1863.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: The President has called for 300,000 additional volunteers to meet the present and prospective exigencies of the war.

Of this additional force Maine is expected to furnish her quota, and she will not disappoint that expectation. Now, as heretofore her patriotic men will respond to the call, and promptly furnish her full share of the force necessary to vindicate the integrity of our Government and maintain the supremacy of the laws of the Union. Our people, with almost entire unanimity, have determined that the present rebellion shall be suppressed, and that the Union which it was designed to destroy shall be maintained. For this purpose they entered upon the contest, and to this end they will persevere until the object be accomplished and until the world shall be satisfied that free men can endure more and persevere longer for the preservation of free government than can the most desperate and determined traitors for its destruction.

The length of the conflict is not to be measured by years, but by events. Treason is to be put down, and to that end should all the measures of the Government be subservient. Great progress has already been made. Two years ago rebellion was bold, defiant, and apparently successful in half of the territory of the Union, and our National Capital was literally besieged by armed traitors. Since that time, by the valor of our arms, they have been expelled from the greater part of this territory, and the banners of the Union now float in triumph over more than half of the States which were then claimed as component parts of their boasted Confederacy. They now find themselves on the point of strangulation by the closeness with which the arms of the Union are pressed upon them. Thousands of loyal men in the South, who have been awed into submission by their despotism, are now flocking to our standards.

A little more pressure, a few more vigorous blows, and the work of suppression will be accomplished and our Union will stand forth in all its former glory-not reconstructed, because not destroyed, but stronger for the assault which has been made upon it. These are encouraging omens.

But the work accomplished has cost immense labor and has required immense resources in both men and money.

To sustain our armies who have struggled so heroically and successfully, to fill their ranks which have been reduced by the return of those whose term of service has expired and thinned by the casualties of the field, and to enable them to hold the vast territory which has been conquered by their valor, and to bring the war to a successful and speedy termination, more men are now wanted. Will those men be forthcoming? Who that knows anything of the past or the patriotism of our people can doubt on this point? I cannot. Our people will not wait for any coercive power to call them to duty. All they desire to know is how much additional aid is desired of them, and I feel full assurance that such aid will be rendered. I therefore, with great confidence, call upon the citizens of this State, as with one mind they have resolved to suppress the rebellion, with united hearts to provide the means necessary to accomplish this object.

The provision for the soldier is most ample. With liberal wages and a bounty of hundreds of dollars, he can go forth with the assurance that those dependent upon him will receive all needed support in