to serve wherever required, for three years, or during the war, to consist of ten companies, and to have the same organization, pay, and emoluments as are allowed to engineer soldiers, under the provisions of the fourth section of an act entitled "An act providing for the better organization of the military establishment," approved August third, eighteen hundred and sixty-one.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the officers of the engineers authorized to be raised under the provisions of the foregoing section shall be appointed and commissioned by the President of the United States, on the recommendation of the commander of the Army of the Cumberland, and shall receive the same pay and allowances as engineer officers of similar grade in the Regular Army.

Approved May 20, 1864.

II. PUBLIC RESOLUTION--Numbers 29. JOINT RESOLUTION relative to pay of staff officers of the lieutenant-general.

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the staff officers on the staff of the lieutenant-general shall be entitled to receive the same pay, emoluments, and allowances as staff officers of the same grade on the staff of corps commanders, the same to take effect from the day of their appointment on the staff of the lieutenant-general.

Approved May 20, 1864.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CIRCULAR
WAR DEPT., PROV. March GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 19.
Washington, May 26, 1864.

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

Relative to the furnishing of substitutes previous to draft.

Opinion.-The act of February 24, 1864, section 4, provides that any person enrolled under the provisions of the act for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes, approved March 3, 1863, or who may be hereafter so enrolled, may furnish, at any time previous to the draft, an acceptable substitute who is not liable to draft, nor at the time in the military or naval service of the United States; and such person so furnishing a substitute shall be exempt from draft during the time for which such substitute shall not be liable to draft, not exceeding the time for which such substitute shall have been accepted.

Two persons liable to draft in Worcester, Mass., where they reside, offer substitutes to the provost-marshal at Washington, with the request that they may be accepted and mustered in, and duly reported to the provost-marshal of the Eighth Massachusetts District, so as to entitle the persons offering them to the exemption provided for by statute.

There is no objection in law to the reception of these substitutes, under such rules and regulations as may be provided for the protection of the interests of the United States, as well as that of the persons enrolled in the military forces.

It is equally beneficial to the service to accept substitutes in Washington as in Massachusetts. I see no reason why the request should not be granted.

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

TRENTON, May 26, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

Will 100-days" men be exempt from any draft hereafter ordered that may be executed during their term of service? Answer.

JOEL PARKER.