and thirty-three others of its citizens enlisted under this call for a like bounty from other towns. The $9,900 of town bounties, which induced these thirty-three men to enlist, could not probably have been raised upon a mortgage of half the property in Stoneham.

A similar state of things exists in the new county of Arrostook, except that some of its towns and plantations pay no bounties and send no men.

If the Government should insist that each city, town and plantation must raise its own quota of troops from its own citizens, I have no hesitation whatever in declaring that any call of Government for either drafted men or volunteers could not be answered in Maine.

Let the policy be undertaken of compelling each locality in this State to respond with its own citizens to a demand for troops, and all the poorer and least populous ones (which generally have the largest proportion of able-bodied men whose situation and circumstances most readily admit of their entering the service) would become denuded of such population, thus not only precluding the places of their residence from filling their quotas, but also older and wealthier towns in the State, which have much money and but few men, comparatively, eligible to enlistment.

Experience has shown that excesses in quotas are even more difficult to deal with in detail than deficiencies, and it is hardly possible hereafter to render settlements therefor generally, if in any degree, satisfactory. It will indeed be fortunate for your department if you can enter de novo upon a draft or call for volunteers hereafter, so far as excesses or deficiencies are concerned.

The destruction of the militia system twenty-five years since and the substitution at this time, in part, of the civil authority for that of the military, occasions the present difficulties (measurably, if not wholly, unavoidable), respecting "apportionments" and "quotas" to conform to the limits of city, town, and plantation boundaries, instead of company, battalion, regimental, brigade and division organizations.

I have the honor to be, very truly and respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN L. HODSON,

Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, D. C., January 16, 1864.

Governor J. A. GILMORE,

Concord, N. H.:

The agreement announced in telegram from Provost-Marshal-General, dated November 5, to the effect that if the State of New Hampshire or the towns should pay the bounties offered by the United States and take an assignment from the recruit,that the Government would pay those bounties to the State or town instead of to the men, will be carried out in good faith,and General Hinks will receive orders accordingly. Experience has developed difficulties in this connection which were not foreseen by the Department and the arrangement will terminate on the 15th of February next.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.