as a unit, having no fractional parts, so far as credit is concerned. A soldier who enlists for three years and dies or is discharged at the end of twelve months, is credited to his sub- district as a three-years" man; and the man who enlists for one year and is discharged in a week after enlistment is credited as a one-year's man. To await the expiration of three-years-that is, until the service had been rendered-would defeat the object of the law and would probably delay the draft until after the close of the war. It must follow, then, that the amount of credit to be given is, and always has been, dependent upon the period for which the soldier enters the service. When a district presents an acceptable recruit for three years and he is received as such by the Government, that district has done all it can do in the premises, and the Government takes the responsibility that the soldier will serve his term of enlistment. This being admitted, the time to apply the credit or to take into account the amount of credits to which the district is entitled is when a settlement is made with all the districts, with a view to assigning quotas under a new call. This follows, not merely as a matter of convenience in computation, but as a matter of necessity, in order to do exact ustice to all the different States and districts, and, moreover, is in exact accordance with the terms of the statute, which provide that-

In assigning to districts the number of men to be furnished therefrom the President shall take into consideration the number of volunteers and militia furnished by and from the several States in which said districts are situated, and the period of their service, since the commencement of the present rebellion, and shall so make said assignments as to equalize the number among the districts of the several States, considering and allowing for the numbers already furnished, as aforesaid, and the time of their service.

And again, section 2, act of February 24, 1864:

That the quota of each ward of a city, town, township, precinct, or election district, or of a county, where the county is not divided into wards, townships, precincts, or election districts, shall be, as nearly as possible in proportion to the number of men resident therein, liable to military service, taking into account, as far as practicable, the number which has been previously furnished therefrom.

I have the honor to inclose a copy of Circular Numbers 1, of 1865,*, which provides that the quotas assigned under the call of December 19, 1864, for 300,000, are not to be deducted, except by actual enlistments since the 19th of December, 1864. The rule in applying credits is, that they should be deducted from the quota of the call that produced them. All men raised since the call of July 18, 1864, are credited upon the quota under that call. If the quota is more than filled, it is carried as excess to the credit of the locality, and taken into account in the assignment of the quota under the call of December 19, 1864, and provost- marshals are instructed that in determining the quotas of sub- districts, under the present call, they will apply such excess accordingly; and all men raised since December 19 are of course credited upon the call of that date. In crediting the excess that is carried forward from the call of July 18, 1864, and applied to the call of December 19, 1864, I consider not only the number of men of which the excess is composed, but also the period of their service; and the quotas assigned under the call of December 19 are thus reduced by this excess of service, and hence they should not be further reduced, except by enlistments subsequent to December 19, 1864, the date of the call for 300,000 men. The credits of the State of Minnesota (under the call of July 18, 1864) up to November 30, 1864, show that the men

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*See p. 1035.

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