with the Army, or in connection with the military defenses of the country, such as working upon fortifications, producing and preparing materials of war, builiding and repairing roads and bridges, and doing other work usually done by engineer troops and pontoniers, acting as cooks, teamsters, stewards and waiters in military hospitals, or other like labor, or similar duties which may be required or prescribed by the Secretary of War, or the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, from time too time, and said free negroes, whilst thus engaged, shall receive rations and clothing, under such regulations as the Secretary of War may prescribe, and shall receive pay at the rate of eighteen dollars per month.

SEC. 2. That the Secretary of War and the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department are each authorized to employ, for duties like those named in the first section of this act, as many male negro slaves, between the ages of eighteen and forty years, as the wants of the service may require, and the said slaves, whilst so employed, shall be furnished rations and clothing, as provided in the preceding section, and the owners paid such hire for their services as may be agreed upon, and in the event of the loss of any slaves whilst so employed, by the act of the enemy, or by escape to the enemy, or by wounds or death inflicted by the enemy, or by disease contracted whilst in any service required of said slaves, and by reason of said service, then the owners thereof, respectively, shall be entitiled to receive the full value of such slaves, to be ascertained and fixed by agreement at the time said slaves are so hired, under rules to be prescribed by the Secretary of War.

SEC. 3. That whenever the Secretary of War, or the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, shall be unable to procure the services of slaves by hiring them, as above provided, in sufficient numbers, then it shall be lawful for the saidi Secretary or general to order the impressment and to impress as many male slaves, within the ages named in the second section of this act, and for the purposes and uses above stated, as the wants of the service may require: Provided, That said impressment shall be made according to the rules and regulations provided in the laws of the States wherein they are impressed, and in the absence of such law, in accordance wiith such rules and regulations not inconsistent with the provisions of this act as the Secretary of War shall from time to time prescribe: Provided further, That slaves so impressed shall, whilst in the Govrenment employment, receive the same clothing and rations allowed to slaves hired from their owners, and in the event of their loss or death, in the manner or from the causes above stated, their value shall be estimated and fixed as provided by the first sectionn of "An act regulating impressments," approved March twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, and paid as in the case of slaves hired from their owners, and the value of the hire of said slaves shall be fixed in like manner.

SEC. 4. That the Secretary of War and the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department shall, in ordering the impressment of slaves, regulate the same, as far as practicable, so that slaves shall be taken from each State in proportion to the whole number hired and impressed under this act, whether owned by citizens of such State or not; but not more than one in every five male slaves within the said ages of eighteen and forty years shall be taken from any one owner, if said slaves are employed by said owner or his lessee uniformly in agriculture or in mechanical pursuits, nor where an owner