D.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE EAST, New York City, June 10, 1864.

His Excellency WILLIAM A. BUCKINGHAM,
Governor of Connecticut:

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letters of the 19th and 31st [30th] ultimo.

I do not perceive that my order to the provost-marshal in regard to bounties conflicts with the legislation of your State. It was clearly the intention of the Legislature that the bounty of $300 should be paid to the recruit.

The requirement making it payable "to the order" of the recruit certainly could not have been intended to divert any portion of it to the payment of parties engaged in procuring persons to enlist. When the most scandalous combinations are made to defraud recruits of their bounties for the benefit of persons who are practicing all sorts of deception to carry out their schemes of depredation, I have felt it my duty to give such instructions to the recruiting officers as to secure to the former the bounties intended for them.

It is only through these instructions that the intention of the law can be carried into execution.

I am sure Your Excellency will, on reflection, see that the course I have taken is proper, and that I shall have Your Excellency's concurrence in the effort I am making to protect recruits from depredation and frustrate the schemes of swindlers.

The order under which Major Perkins is acting was issued by me to put a stop to frauds on recruits in this State, but the order was necessarily co-extensive in its application with the department.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

E.

STATE OF CONNECTICUT, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, New Haven, June 15, 1864.

Major General JOHN A. DIX,

Commanding Department of the East:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt last evening of your favor of the 10th instant, in reply to my request for a revocation or modification of your order in relation to the payment of bounties, in which you say:

* * * * *

I do not perceive that my order to the provost-marshal in regard to bounties conflicts with the legislation of your State. It was clearly the intention of the Legislature that the bounty of $300 should be paid to the recruit. * * *

And further, that--

It is only through these instructions that the intention of the law can be carried into execution.

In reply, I would state that the intention of the General Assembly which passed the act providing for the payment of State bounty was to give the volunteer an opportunity to send his entire bounty, without risk of robbery, to his wife, or mother, or creditor, or to whomsoever he pleased, and your order not only conflicts with this intention, but with the very language of the statute, and is a serious obstacle in the way of its execution.