DAVENPORT, January 12, 1865.

SECRETARY OF WAR:

We have authority to raise a regiment of infantry, but the restriction from the Provost-Marshal-General will prevent. I think we can raise a good regiment, but let us do it with allowance of all proper bills by the disbursing officer for transportation and subsistence. We can raise the regiment officer for transportation and subsistence. We can raise the regiment by March 1. I must have recruiting agents, but I do not want second lieutenants. Let me go ahead, and you instruct Colonel Grier to pay all proper bills.

N. B. BAKER,

Adjutant-General of Iowa.

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

Washington, D. C., January 12, 1865.

His Excellency STEPHEN MILLER,

Governor of Minnesota:

SIR: Your communication of the 3rd instant in relation to the quotas of the districts in the State of Minnesota has been received, and in reply thereto I have the honor to state that the call of the President for 500,000 men, dated July 18, 1864, having been greatly reduced by credits on account of Army, and Navy enlistments, which had not heretofore been credited, it became necessary to make an additional call for 300,000 men to make up the deficiency and to preserve the call of July 18, 1864, for 500,000 would put that number of men in service, because the act of Congress under which the call was made directed that all enlistments made in the Navy from the commencement of the rebellion until the 24h of February, 1864, should be credited upon the quota, and these, with other equitable claims of enlistments not previously credited, reduced that call and rendered necessary the one of December 19, 1864, for 300,000. The object, therefore, of the last call is to put 300,000 men in the service. Whether they are enlisted for one, two, or three years they will be counted as units in filing the quota, and the excess or credit which any locality may be entitled to on account of filling its quota with three-years" men will be estimated in the assignment of future quotas, should there be another call, upon the same principle that has varied the quotas under the present call, because some localities have filled their quotas under the call of July 18, 1864, with three-years" men and others with one- year's men.

It will be observed that the numbers of men to be furnished under the present call are not in proportion to the population of States or districts nor to the number enrolled. Had all localities filled the call for 500,000 with three-years" men, or all in the same proportion of both, the number of men to be furnished under the present call would be in proportion to the number enrolled, and approximate three-fifths of the quota under the call for 500,000, varied only to correspond with the changes in the enrollment as revised and corrected. But as it would be unjust and illegal to require a district which had filled its quota under the last call with three-years" men to furnish as many men under the present call as an equal district which had filled its quota under the last call with one-year's men, the former having furnished three times the number of years of service which the latter