has been instructed to muster out all additional white volunteers in that department (there are now in service there 3,681 white, present and absent) that he can spare. This contemplated reduction will be in addition to that referred to in the summary.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS M. WINCENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

MOBILE, ALA., April 4, 1866.

General JOSEPH HOLT,

Judge-Advocate-General:

The proclamation of the President is unofficially before me.* I have several cases ready and pending against citizens before commissions. Shall I proceed with or suspend them if writs of habeas corpus are issued in cases already tried? Please advise me what course I shall pursue.

C. R. WOODS,

Major-General.

[Indorsement.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, April 5, 1866.

In the opinion of this Department the President's proclamation of the 3rd [2nd] of April does not invalidate proceedings before military tribunals having jurisdiction of the alleged offense, nor divert or limit the jurisdiction or authority of such tribunals. But it is a declaration of the President's purpose to dispense with such tribunals to the utmost possible extent consistent with the public peace and welfare and rely on the appropriate action of civil authorities. All pending trials may be proceeded in to final adjudication, remitting the sentences to the Judge-Advocate-General for review before execution. All other cases should be transferred to the civil authorities or discharged, except such special cases as in the judgment of the military commander should be submitted to the Executive for special instructions upon the facts, of which a full and clear detail should be made to enable the President to decide the proper action. In respect to writs of habeas corpus, they should be obeyed without resistance by military authority unless otherwise instructed upon special facts to be reported by the military commandant to superior authority in Washington.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

OFFICE OF CHIEF ENGINEER, U. S. MILITARY RAILROADS,

Washington, D. C., April 24, 1866.

General D. C. MCCALLUM

Director and General Manager Military Railroads U. S.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following final report showing the amount and cost of work done for constructions and maintenance of way on the several military railroads in what was the Military Division of the Mississippi, and also on the military railroads in the Department of North Carolina. This report only embraces the operations on these roads subsequent to the time they were placed in

*Embodied in General Orders, Numbers 84, October 4, 1866, p. 1007.