If enlisted in an old organization after October 24, 1863, and prior to April 1, 1864, $300.

If enlisted in a new organization after December 24, 1863, and prior to April 1, 1864, $300.

If enlisted between April 1, 1864, and July 17, 1864, inclusive, $100.

1. All persons of color enlisted and mustered into service under the President's call for $300,000 volunteers, dated October 17, 1863, who were at the time of enlistment enrolled and subject to draft in the State where enlisted, are entitled to bounty as follows, viz:

Enlisted in any organization of colored troops between October 17 and October 24, 1863, $100.

Enlisted in an old organization after October 24, 1863, and prior to April 1, 1864, $300.

Enlisted in a new organization after December 24, 1863, and prior to April 1, 1864, $300.

Remark to be entered on the muster-roll: "Enrolled and subject to draft in the----enrollment district of the State of

------

at time of enlistment."

3. All enlistments of colored men after July 18, 1864, for one, two, or three years, entitle them to bounty of $100, $200, and $300 respectively.

4. Colored soldiers who have been, or hereafter shall be, discharged by reason of wounds received in battle, on skirmish or picket, or in action, or in the line of duty, and who are otherwise entitled under existing laws to bounty, are entitled to receive the same bounty as if they had served out the full term of enlistment.

5. All persons of color drafted under the act of March 3, 1863, and prior to September 5, 1864, and their substitutes, are entitled to a bounty of $100, provided they serve two full years. They have also the same pay and allowance as white soldiers.

6. Under section 2, act of June 15, 1864, no bounty was ordered by the President for persons of color who should enlist between that date and July 19, 1864, unless free April 19, 1861.

7. For colored persons, when discharged, the final papers should contain the same data for bounty as was required to elucidate their claims upon the muster-rolls. Paymasters, when they can consistently do so, should aid in conveying information on this point to all interested.

B. W. BRICE,

Paymaster-General.

The following brief outline of the recruitment of colored persons is taken mainly from the reports and records of the Bureau for Colored Troops, and is inserted here in connection with the foregoing recapitulation of the laws and orders on the subject.

The acceptance of colored men as soldiers in the service of the United States began in Louisiana by the muster in, on the 27th of September, 1862, of the First Louisiana Native Guards, subsequently designated Seventy-third Regiment U. S. Colored Troops.

Four other regiments were raised in that military department and mustered in prior to March 7, 1863, two of them before the 1st of January, 1863.

The efforts made in the early summer of 1862 to raise colored troops in South Carolina did not result in the muster of an organization until January 31, 1863, when the First South Carolina Volunteers, subsequently designated Thirty-third U. S. Colored Troops, was mustered into the service as soldiers. Three other regiments were mustered in that department prior to July 1, 1863.

In April, 1863, a regiment was completed in Kansas, called the First Kansas Volunteers, subsequently designated Seventy-ninth U. S. Colored Troops. Another regiment then in process of organization was some time after completed.

Early in the spring of 1863 the organization of colored troops was commenced in the Mississippi Valley under the personal supervision of the Adjutant-General of the Army. His first regiment was mustered into service on the 1st of May, 1863, as the First Arkansas Volunteers of African Descent, afterward designated Forty-sixth