FRANKFORT, July 30, 1864.

Honorable SECRETARY OF WAR:

Applications are coming in for authority to recruit companies and regiments under the last call of the President. Shall I grant commissions for recruiting companies and regiments? Have you received my dispatch about re-enlisting the twelve-months" troops for three years as cavalry? General Burbridge much desires it, as they are ready mounted and can easily add two more companies to each regiment. Answer.

THOS. E. BRAMLETTE,

Governor of Kentucky.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., July 31, 1864.

Governor BRAMLETTE,

Frankfort, Ky.:

Your dispatch of yesterday to Secretary of War is received. In what time do you think you can raise a regiment of infantry for one year; and do you think you can raise more than one regiment before time fixed for draft? Will the twelve-months" troops you refer to re-enlist for three years without any condition as to place of service; or do they desire to serve only in Kentucky?

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, SOLICITOR'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., August 1, 1864.

OPINION.

The President of the United States is authorized by the act of July 4, 1864, "to call for any number of men as volunteers for the respective terms of one, two, or three years for military service; and any such volunteer, or in case of draft, as hereinafter provided, any substitute shall be credited to town, township, ward of a city, precinct, or election district, or of a county not so subdivided, toward the quota of which he may have volunteered, or engaged as a substitute.

"In case any quota or part thereof shall not be filled within fifty days after such call, the President is required immediately to order a draft for one year to fill such quota or part thereof which may then be unfilled."

This act is in addition to, and in amendment of, the prior acts for "enrolling and calling out the national forces," and must be constructed in connection therewith.

On the 18th of July, 1864, the President called for 500,000 volunteers, under the provisions of the above-cited act.

Volunteers and drafted men are thus to be introduced into the service for one, tow, or three years; whereas, by the prior enrollment laws of 1863 and 1864, the only period of service provided for was three years or during the war, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers are now in the service as three-years" men.

Questions having arisen relating to the settlement of quotas of which the one-year's men are now to constitute a part, a consideration of the objects, principles, and provisions of the enrollment laws has become necessary.