each enlistment, whether for one, two, or three years, shall count as one in filling the quotas to be obtained.

Third. The law expressly provides that the period of service which has been furnished shall be taken into account in the assignment of quotas, and until the men have actually been furnished there is no claim for credit to be considered. In the present instance the claim for reduction or modification is made before the State or its districts have done anything of consequence toward raising that part of their quotas about which they make no question.

The quotas under the present call have been prepared as required by existing acts of Congress, and are distributed as fairly as seems practicable. The apparent inequalities result mainly from the facts that the first section of the act approved July 4, 1864, requires men to be enlisted at their option for either of three different periods, namely, one, two, or three years.

It must be granted that it is impossible so to assign quotas or raise troops under existing laws, which require that both drafting and volunteering shall be going on at once, that the different districts shall appear to have rendered at any one time their exact proportional amounts of military service.

The charge that the burdens of furnishing men are not distributed equally may at any time be truthfully made, but it is to be expected where all are so anxious to suppress the rebellion that it will not delay the raising of troops. The worst that can come of it is that if the war should suddenly close some States and districts would stand on the national record as having furnished more than their due proportion of men to fight for the Nation's existence.

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

JAMES B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, D. C., January 22, 1865.

Major General JOHN A. DIX,

Commanding Department of the East, New York City:

GENERAL: Herewith inclosed you will receive a copy of a report of the Judge-Advocate-General upon the system of correspondence with the rebel States established between the New York Daily News and the Richmond newspapers.

In compliance with the recommendation of the Judge-Advocate- General, you will at once give notice to the editors and proprietors of the New York Daily News that this system of correspondence by advertising must immediately cease, and in case they continue the offense you will instantly arrest them all and bring them to immediate trial before a military commission for violation of the laws of war.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Inclosure.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF MILITARY JUSTICE,

Washington, D. C., January 20, 1865.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: In regard to the system of correspondence with rebels, maintained by means of an interchange of printed communications in