WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., February 4, 1864.

Governor O. P. MORTON,

Indianapolis, Ind.:

Can you raise promptly twenty companies of infantry, to be combined by you into regiments as fast as companies are completed? If so, please enter upon it at once and complete the undertaking as soon as possible.

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

STATE HOUSE,

Augusta, Me., February 4, 1864.

Colonel JAMES B. FRY:

You may expect our best efforts. More organizations better for the service. If Maine will advance money to purchase horses, can we be allowed them - cavalry and artillery?

SAMUEL CONY,

Governor of Maine.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., February 4, 1864.

Governor CONY,

Augusta, Me.:

The Government does not desire to accept cavalry and artillery at present, even on the terms proposed in your dispatch. Infantry is wanted as soon as possible.

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

WASHINGTON, February 4, 1864.

Brigadier-General CARLETON,

Santa Fe, N. Mex.:

GENERAL: Judge Knapp, of New Mexico, in a communication to the Attorney-General, has complained, among other things, that under your authority military commissions in your department have taken cognizance of and adjudicate upon actions of debt, trespass, & c., between persons not in the military service.

I am directed by the Secretary of War to say that military commissions and military courts in your department have no jurisdiction of such cases, and that their decisions are utterly null and void. Moreover, the individual members may thus render themselves liable to punishment and damages. The practice, if it exists, should be immediately discontinued.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., February 4, 1864.

Governor SEYMOUR,

Albany, N. Y.:

You are authorized to raise forty new companies of infantry, to be combined into regiments as fast as companies are completed.