[Inclosure No. 2.]

The following is the exemption act passed at the recent session of the South Carolina Legislature:

AN ACT to authorize the Governor to require the exemption of certain State officers and other persons from Confederate service.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, now meet and sitting in General Assembly, and by the authority of the same, That the Governor be, and is hereby, authorized and required to claim the exemption from Confederate military service of the officers and members of both branches of the General Assembly of this State, and the following State officers, to wit: Lieutenant-governor, judges of the courts of law and equity, attorney-general and the counts of law and equity, attorney-general and solicitors, secretary of state, comptroller-general, state auditor and two assistants, treasures of the upper and lower division, adjutant and inspector general and one assistant, aides-de-camp to the Governor (not to exceed one to each militia brigade), private secretary of the Governor and his clerk, sheriffs, clerks of the court, ordinaries, masters, registers and commissioners in equity, tax collectors, president, cashier, book-keeper, and one teller of the bank of the State and each of its branches, officers and cadets of the State military academies, professors of the South Carolina College, superintendent, physician, and keepers of the lunatic asylum, and superintendent, steward, and teachers of the Asylum for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind.

SEC. 2. That the Governor be and is hereby authorized, if the same be in his judgment necessary, and under such regulations as he may prescribe, to require the exemption of the following State officers and other persons, to wit: Members of the Board for the Relief of Soldiers' Families (who are over forty-five years of age), president, casher, book-keeper, and one teller now in the employment of each of the several banks in the State, the presidents and treasures now in the employment of the two saving institutions in the State, such deputy sheriff as may be indispensable to the execution of the laws of the State (not to exceed one in each judicial district), State agent for the supply of slave labor, one editor for each newspaper being published at the time of the passage of this act, and such printers and pressmen as said editor may certify upon oath to be indispensable to the publication of said newspaper; the public printer of the State government, and such journeyman printers as said public printer shall certify upon oath to be indispensable to the public printing; the chief of the South Carolina Hospital Bureau at Richmond and his assistant, the officers and members of the police and fire department of Charleston and Columbia, and such artisans, mechanics, and persons of scientific skill, and other employes as may be indispensable to the carrying on of the manufactures and public works belonging to the State; the professors and teachers of all incorporated collages in the State; every minister of religion authorized to preach according to the rules of his church, and who was, on the 1st day of May, 1861, and at the passage of this act, shall be regularly employed in the discharge of his ministerial duties, and is not engaged in any traffic.

SEC. 3. That for the proper police of the country the Governor is hereby authoritized, under such regulations as he may prescribe, to require the exemption from Confederate military service of such persons as he may adjudge indispensable for the government of the slaves, and the protection of the citizens and property of the State: Provided, That such exemptions shall not exceed in any district one for every two hundred slaves in said district: And provided further, That the rights of oversees now having both Confederate and State exemptions shall not be changed nor altered by the provct, nor shall such persons be included in the estimate of the above proviso.

SEC. 4. That all officers and persons who shall be so required by the Governor, pursuant to the provisions of this act, be, and they are hereby, declared exempt from Confederate military service during the period for which their exemption shall be so claimed.

WAR DEPARTMENT, ENGINEER BUREAU,

Richmond, Va., December 29, 1864.

Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: I have the honor to state that the claims against the Engineer Department will, at the close of the present month, amount to