office in cases where claims for payment are made by owners in consequence of the enlistment of their slaves.

Certificates of enlistment and descriptive lists will be furnished to loyal owners whose slavers are enlisted. A supply of the former, as per inclosed copy,* will be forwarded to you from this office.

I have the honor, &c.,

C. W. FOSTER,

Assistant Adjutant-General of Volunteers.

CIRCULAR
WAR DEPT., PROV. March GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 16.
Washington, April 29, 1864.

The following opinion of the Honorable William Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, is published for the information and guidance of all officers of this Bureau:

I regard to the question whether the plea of non-residence in the district where a drafted man may have been enrolled should, under all circumstances, be regarded by boards of enrollment as a legal and proper ground for exemption from military service under the draft in that district, &c.

Opinion.- When a person who has been enrolled and drafted claims exemption from the draft on the ground of non-residence, the Board of Enrollment will be justified in granting it if he makes satisfactory proof on three points:

1. His non-residence in the district where he claims exemption at the time of his enrollment therein.

2. What his place of actual residence was at the time when the enrollment therein was made.

3. That he was or is actually enrolled and has been drafted or his liable to draft in his place of actual residence.

All persons from whom military service is required under the act of Congress are liable to enrollment and draft in some district. The notation of the occupations and residence of persons enrolled is not required to enable unpatriotic citizens, by technical objections, to avoid their fair share of public duty, but to identify the persons drafted and assist in equalizing among the different districts their respective quotas.

Whoever has been enrolled in one district and intends to claim exemption from draft by reason of residence elsewhere must take care to be enrolled where he resides.

If the corrected enrollment be promptly effected, an application thereafter made to the Provost-Marshal-General or to the boards of enrollment will protect him against double liability; but if he neglect this privilege he ought not escape all military service in time of war by proving that an error had been made in the place of his residence, the spelling of his made, or the description of his trade or occupation.

It is deemed a privilege to enter into the military service of the United States. The patriot owes it to his country, the man of honor owes it to his neighbors, to see that every citizen liable to military duty is properly enrolled.

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

FRANKFORT, KY., April 29, 1864.

E. M. STANTON:

Ten thousand six-months" men can be raised promptly is the opinion of Adjutant-General Boyle.

T. E. BRAMLETTE,

Governor.

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* Omitted.

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