Under the provisions of the War Department allowing recruits for the First Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps, to be credited to their place of residence, and under the influence of the large local bounties paid in certain localities, many were induced to enter the corps, and were enlisted by regimental recruiting officers at Camp Douglas and Rock Island. But all such enlistments immediately ceased upon receipt of the order of the Provost-Marshal-General of February 24, 1865, disallowing credits for enlistments in the Veteran Reserve Corps.

It is ascertained from the monthly regimental returns of the superintendents of recruiting service for the Fourth, Eighth, and Fifteenth Regiments Veteran Reserve Corps stationed in this State, that the total enlistments and re-enlistments in said regiments for the year 1864 were 189 men, and for the first four months of 1865 36 men. Four men have also been enlisted for the Eleventh Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, making a total of 229 men from the regimental recruiting service, which, added to the 97 already reported, makes an aggregate of 326 as the number enlisted and re-enlisted in this State since the organization of the Invalid Corps.

Many causes have conspired to lessen the number of men transferred from hospitals to the Veteran Reserve Corps in this State. The largest proportion of men of Illinois regiments in the military departments bordering on the Mississippi who have been sent to hospital have been absorbed in the immense general hospitals at Memphis and Saint Louis. The same is true of Illinois soldiers in the Departments of the Cumberland and Tennessee, most of them being retained in the extensive hospitals at Nashville and Louisville. From these hospitals great numbers of Illinois soldiers have been transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps, not entering the State, however, until organized into companies. To the same effect is the fact that the surgeons in charge of the general hospitals at Camp Butler and Mound City have been repeatedly instructed to forward their convalescents to Cincinnati and Saint Louis, for transfer to the Veteran Reserve Corps, thus depriving companies in this State of the men to which they were rightfully entitled. It is but just to state, however, that as soon as the attention of the proper authorities was called to the unfair workings of the system practiced it was discontinued.

The number of men transferred from hospitals in this State to the corps under my supervision and orders amounts to 730, being 169 for the year 1863, 211 in 1864, and 350 in 1865.

Two companies have been organized in this State by authority not emanating from these headquarters, having at the time of organization about ninety men each; and two companies have been organized under my direction belonging to the First and Second Battalions, respectively. The former numbered eighty men, and was originally known as the First Company, First Battalion, Invalid Corps, but afterward received the Bureau designation of the One hundred and sixteenth Company, First Battalion. It was subsequently incorporate into the Twenty-third Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, as Company E. The Second Battalion company, numbering eighty-eight men, was originally known Bureau designation of the One hundred and seventh Company, Second Battalion, by which it is still known.

Enough men have been enlisted and transferred in this State to constitute a maximum regiment, and but for the fact that large numbers of men have constantly been required to re-enforce companies whose ranks were being reduced by expiration of service and dis-

52 R R-SERIES III, VOL V