In this State advantage has been found by General Kemper, who has been actively enforcing conscription, in having all retired officers capable of service and supernumeraries report to him, and using them. By selections from them and among the reserves, where many intelligent men of influence are now ranged, he has much improved the corps of enrolling officers in this State. Thinking it probable you might derive benefit from a like command of invalid and supernumerary officers, I have caused an order to be issued requiring all such in your State to report to you for assignment, and I would advise you to substitute the mntelligent among them for the enrolling officers you have had, sending all the latter capable of active service to the field.

Our late reverses and the despondency they have caused will be best remedied by strengthening our armies, and no duty at this time is more important and imperative than the energetic enforcement of our conscript laws. The Department has full confidence in your appreciation and execution of it.

Very truly, yours,

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

OFFICE CHIEF COMMISSARY OF SUBSISTENCE,

SECOND DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA,

Charlottesville, January 20, 1865.

Major B. P. NOLAND,

Chief Commissary of Subsistence, Virginia:

MAJOR: I have just received a letter from Captain Thomas R. Foster, assistant commissary of subsistence, third division of my district, in which he says:

I have great difficulty in my own mind to know what I ought to do under existing circumstances. I know the Government needs every hoof in my division, yet I do not feel that I would be doing the farmers justice to take their stock unless I knew where or when the way would come. I now owe the people $40,000 or $50,000 in gold and greenbacks. Have written you several letters setting forth my difficulties. Have received no answer, and consequently have nothing to base a promise upon, an now think it best to retire from the market until I know something definite in regard to my future supply of funds.

In the several replies I made to Captain Foster's letters (none of which he seems to have received at the writing of the above) I have informed him that I have regularly sent him all the specie and U. S. currency that have come into my hands; that I had no means of knowing to what extent the Subsistence Bureau could command these funds, but that all I could do would be done to keep him supplied with the funds necessary to work his division. When I first took charge of the district, funds other than C. S. notes were needed only immediately along the enemy's border. Indeed, at a few miles distant therefrom the people not only received Confederate money readily, but felt themselves open to the suspicion of diisloyalty if they took greenbacks. This is no longer the case. The people for a belt of several counties along the Potomac now refuse to take anything but U. S. currency, cotton, or gold. These are the only counties in my district from which any considerable amount of meats are gotten, and it seems to me of the utmost my officers should be suppliied not only with funds to meet their present indebtedness, but to make future purchases. I am not informed of the difficulties that