SPECIAL ORDERS, WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 70.
Washington, February 12, 1864.

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44. Colonel S. M. Bowman, Eighty-fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers, is hereby assigned to duty as chief mustering and recruiting officer for colored troops in the State of Maryland, and will relieve Brigadier General William Birney, U. S. Volunteers.

Brigadier-General Birney on being relieved will proceed, in command of the Seventh and Ninth Regiments U. S. Colored Troops, to Hilton Head, S. C., and report to the commanding general Department of the South.

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By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., February 12, 1864.

Honorable RICHARD WALLACH,

Washington, D. C.:

SIR: In reply to questions contained in communication of the 1st instant, I have the honor to say:

First. The quotas of this District under the call of the President are as follows:

Quota under calls of 1861 ............................... 3,235

Quota under call of July, 1862 .......................... 1,771

Quota under call of 1862 (300,000 nine-months" volunteers) 1,771

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Total ................................................... 6,777

Second. Had a quota been assigned to the District it would have been 6,777.

Third. Unsettled state of the population and its division of feeling on the subject of the war - in other words, the District was viewed in the same light as were Kentucky and Missouri of the Border States, to which no quotas were assigned until recently - was the reason that no quota was assigned to the District.

Fourth. There is no rule of the Enrolling Bureau that prevents the District from obtaining credit for the troops furnished.

Fifth. The District of Columbia is on the same footing with the States, and entitled to the same rights relative to furnishing troops under the calls of the President.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

HENRY E. MAYNADIER,

Captain, U. S. Army, in Charge of Enrollment Bureau.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, February 12, 1864.

Governor O. P. MORTON,

Indianapolis, Ind.:

It will be impossible to extend the time of the Thirty-fifth Indiana Regiment (Irish) without endangering the whole organization of the Army. The leaves of absence are arranged so as to give the different