If any drafted men, after having been notified to appear at a designated time and place, fail to do so, you will see that they are at once arrested as deserters.

You will see that the regulations in regard to the draft are observed, and you will take pains, by every mean to anticipate and provide for all wants and emergencies of this special service. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter.

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

JAS. B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

P. S.-In making credits to sub-district for number mustered in in the interval indicated the following memoranda will be found useful.

First. Where a sub-district constitutes in a single town, deduct from the quotas as assigned in the orders for draft the number mustered in and 50 per cent. additional. The remainder will be the number to be drawn, and two-thirds of it will be the quota required.

Second. There will be no draft from sub-districts which have raised their full quotas; that is to say, two-thirds of the number assigned in the accompanying orders.

Third. When a city or town is divided into two or more sub- districts, and the returns of the mustering officer do not recognize and indicate such subdivision, the deduction to be made on account of volunteers mustered in from the entire city or town will be credited to the several sub-districts in the proportion of their quotas.

Fourth. In cases where sub-district are made up of two or more towns, &c., and the returns of mustering officers only recognize and indicate such towns, &c., let the draft be made for the full number set down in the accompanying orders for draft, and strike off the names of men last drafted (highest numbers in the order of the draft) in the several towns, &c., to the extent of the volunteers so mustered in from such towns, &c,. and 50 per cent. additional. Where in any such sub-districts none are drawn from a township so entitled to credit, let the credit stand to the town for the next draft.

OFFICE OF THE SIGNAL OFFICER,

October 30, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: The average number of officers on duty in the Signal Corps of the Army since my last annual report has been 198. These have served with different armies and different military departments, with nearly the following distribution:

In the Army of the Potomac............................ 36

In the Department of the Cumberland................... 42

In the Department of the Gulf......................... 15

In the Department of North Carolina and Virginia...... 18

In the Department of the South........................ 21

In the Department of the Susquehanna.................. 3

In the Department of the Tennessee.................... 41

In the Camp of Instruction, Georgetown, D. C.......... 22

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Total................................................. 198

The duties of the corps have been discharged, during the past year, under more favorable conditions than when previously reported.