Now, instead of having a leading or even a subordinate part in this matter, I have never been consulted, and what I complain of is that General Hinks does not carry out the wishes and instructions of the General Government in this particular.

I am not consulted, nor do I know anything in relation to recruiting in New Hampshire only what I hear indirectly. I am obliged to act without regard to the officers stationed here, and have sustained Captain Colby in the effort he has made to further my wishes and recruit men. For instance, at the time of removal of Henry F. Richmond, commissioner for this district, Samuel Upton, of Manchester, was appointed as his successor without even consulting me, nor have I as yet been officially of his appointment. I entertain none but the kindest of feelings toward Mr. Upton; still his appointment does not tend to conciliate the different elements in this district, and in some respects it is the most objectionable one that could have been made. Again, I wrote the Department asking that Surgeon Thayer be detailed for the purpose of opening a new recruiting office at Portsmouth in the First Congressional District, but I learn indirectly that a day or two since a general recruiting office was opened in this the Second District instead of the First, where nearly all the complaints have arisen. In opening another recruiting office in the Second District the remedy sought cannot be obtained, and the wishes of the citizens of the First District, as well as my own, are notf the 11th instant you say:

I believe the only power the Government now reserves in the matter of raising the volunteers called for from New Hampshire is to muster them in and pay them.

Am I not to understand from the above that I have the power to recruit volunteers in my own way (regardless of other authorities) previous to mustering? In regard to Captain Colby, I have to say, as I have stated in my former letter, that he is a good officer, has been Governor of our State, and is popular with the people, especially of the Second District, who feel that they have just reason to be satisfied with him for the efficient manner in which he has conducted the business of his office, so that their quota under the last call is now within less than 200 of being filled; that he has managed the somewhat delicate duties of his office, in a district where nearly one-half of the voters are bitterly hostile to the war, so as to cause little or on dissatisfaction is a fact that is generally conceded here. That there are certain politicians in the district who are pursuing Captain Colby on account of some matters growing out of our local politics, which have nothing to do with the position he holds and with which I will not trouble your department, I know to be true. I should be sorry, however, to believe that General Hinks has allowed himself to be prejudiced by any of these sinister influences, though he seems completely to have ignored the State authorities and to have thrown himself into the hands of a self- constituted clique of political wire-pullers with whom the people have no sympathy. At all events, for some reason or other the general has undertaken to exercise a supervision over the internal management of Captain Colby's office in a manner particularly offensive. For instance, on the 28th of November last an order was issued to Captain Colby directing that "a greater degree of discipline must be enforced in his office; that the room connecting the office with the clothing room and examining room must at all times be cleared," &c.; that "a room will be set apart in which