When there I will make a report of the condition of affairs respecting the colored troops in East and Middle Tennessee.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

December 27, 1864.

His Excellency the GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY,

Frankfort, Ky.:

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th instant, requesting that authority be granted Colonel John Mason Brown to recruit a regiment of veteran Kentucky soldiers, in order that the State may be represented in the First Army Corps. In reply, I am directed to inform you that the regulations under which the First Corps is organizing do not contemplate recruitment by regiments raised in the respective States.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS M. VINCENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

COLUMBUS, OHIO, December 27, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

I much regret the publication of your telegraph. It was done by my clerk in my absence. I am anxious myself to give the old regiments the benefit of this call, but how shall it be done? There is not time for details from the field to recruit men. The next feasible mode is to raise and organize companies under officers appointed in the usual way, to be mustered and assigned to regiments that can receive them as such organizations. The third and last is the draft. Can you put details here in time to be effective? If not, what say you to the companies? The field commanders will all decide in favor of filling up the old commands, and I have no disposition to contest that point. I desire to be at work with the most feasible plan to raise men.

JOHN BROUGH.

INDIANAPOLIS, December 28, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

Large numbers of Southern refugees, women and children, entirely destitute, are coming here, filling the depots and streets. Our citizens are doing everything for their relief and are trying to house them. I am informed that rations are issued to such refugees at other points. If there is any order or regulation by which such rations can be issued here, it will relieve a great deal of suffering.

O. P. MORTON,

Governor of Indiana.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, December 28, 1864.

Governor MORTON, Indianapolis:

Upon inquiry I cannot find that any issues of supplies have been made to destitute persons or refugees except in the rebel States under