CIRCULAR
WAR DEPT., ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 41.
Washington, May 25, 1864.

1. The Secretary of War directs that, in cases where officers and enlisted men (such as exhanged prisoners, convalescents, &c.) are to be sent to their regiments in the field, they shall not be forwarded, unless it is probable that they will reach their regiments in time to serve at least ten days before the expiration of their term of service.

2. The attention of all commanders is invited to the orders from this office directing that the men whose terms of service expire at the expiration of the original term of the regiment should be sent to the State to which the regiment belongs, to be mustered out under the superintendence of the chief mustering officer of the State. When the term of service of enlisted men expires at other times, they should be mustered out of service by the commissary or assistant commissary of musters of the command in which they may be serving. When enlisted men are too sick to travel to the proper place of muster-out, they will be discharged for disability in the usual way, stating, in addition, the fact that the soldier's term of service has expired. The discharge of men of the Veteran Reserve Corps is provided for by Circular Numbers 12, current series, from this office.*

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

FRANKFORT, KY., May 25, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

If the following meets your approbation, please advise me. On June 1 I can consolidate all six-months" volunteers into regiments. The residue of 10,000 men I will fill up with three- months" militia, whose service our laws authorize me to enforce when their term expires. I will replace them [with] others, making the whole six-months" service. They should be mustered into U. S. service. The draft has crippled recruiting, and we may be unable to get enough volunteers soon enough for you.

THOS. E. BRAMLETTE,

Governor of Kentucky.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, May 25, 1864.

Major-General WALLACE,

Commanding Middle Department, Baltimore, Md.:

SIR: Complaint has been made to me as law officer of the Government, several weeks ago, and again within the last few days, of an order of yours entitled "General Orders, Numbers 30," and dated "Baltimore, Md., April 26, 1864."+

The only copy of this orders which has been brought to my knowledge is in print, clipped from a Baltimore newspaper; yet, having no reason to doubt its genuineness, I treat it as genuine.

That order, general, it seems to me, assumes a very large power over persons, contracts, and property purely civil, and over which the military has no lawful authority. The attempt to enforce it generally

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*Omitted; same as circular letter of December 17, 1863, Vol. III, this series, p. 1174.

+See Series I, Vol. XXXIII, p. 989.

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