ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, June 7, 1864.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: In view of the cruelties practiced in the State of Kentucky by owners of slaves toward recruits rejected by recruiting officers for physical disability, it is respectfully recommended that Brigadier General L. Thomas, Adjutant-General U. S. Army, be instructed in effect as follows, viz:

You will please instruct the superintendent volunteer recruiting service for the State of Kentucky to accept and enlist any slave who may present himself for enlistment, provided such slave is fit for any military service or duty in the engineer, quartermaster's, or commissary departments. Such men will be assigned to any "invalid" colored regiment in process of organization at the time of their enlistment. These instructions will not be construed as authorizing the enlistment of free colored men, or of slaves physically disqualified, who may be presented by their owners for enlistment.

Respectfully submitted.

C. W. FOSTER,

Assistant Adjutant-General of Volunteers.

[Indorsement.]

Approved.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE, June 7, 1864.

GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS,

Boston, Mass.:

SIR: In answer to your indorsement of the 3rd instant upon a communication from the chairman of the committee for raising colored troops, you are hereby authorized to raise an additional regiment of volunteer infantry (either of white or colored men) under the following conditions:

First. The regiment must be organized within forty days from the date you may see fit to commence the recruitment. The recruitment and organization must not interfere with or in any way delay the efforts of the United States to raise troops in Massachusetts by draft or otherwise.

Second. The recruitment and organization must be conducted in strict conformity with the requirements of the recruiting and mustering regulations of the Army, including the changes made by General Orders, Numbers 131, current series, from the Adjutant- General's Office. To this end the authority for the special departures from the regulations authorized in a letter dated October 26, 1863, from me to Brigadier General R. A. Peirce, quartermaster-general of Massachusetts, is hereby revoked, and will for the future be considered as entirely set aside.

Third. All men recruited under this authority will be promptly credited so soon as reported to this office by the Adjutant- General of the Army.