men for the Fifty-eighth Illinois Volunteers, and that the organization be completed at Camp Butler, Ill. In reply I am directed to inform yo that all like applications, have hitherto been refused. The regulations look the assignment of all drafted men to complete companies of old regiments which have still maintained their regimental organizations by distributing them to vacancies therein. No departure from the existing regulations can be made in this case.

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

THOMAS M. VINCENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SRINGFIELD, February 18, 1865.

(Received 4.15 p. m.)

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

There will be an excess of several companies over the ten regiments. Will you give authority to assign men to old regiments in the field? About fifty companies may be used in this way. I do not want recruiting to stop in the State.

R. J. OGLESBY,

Governor.

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Providence, February 18, 1865.

The PRESIDENT,

Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I desire to call your attention to the inclosed report of my private secretary, Colonel Bailey, in relation to the quota assigned to Rhode Island under your last call dated December 19, 1864. Permit me to state further in relation to this matter that the system as explained in your letter to His Excellency Governor Smith, of Vermont, upon this subject appears to be entirely just tall the States. The Provost-Marshal-General has not carried out the system as therein explained, but has multiplied the call by 3 and then added the excess of all the States. This excess in not over 500,000 years of service, which, upon give as the one to be followed would make the number on which quotas should be assigned 800,000, while the Provost-Marshal-General, by multiplying the call be 3 and then adding this excess, makes the number, 1,400,000. You will at once see that injustice; and on your own plan, if we had excess sufficient to meet the call for 800,000, we should be our of the draft, while as it is now we have to have excess enough to meet a call for 1,400,000.

To prove that the Provost-Marshal-General, by multiplying by 3 and then dividing the quotas by 3 after they have been reduced by the excess of a State, changes the proportion which each State furnishes, although it does not alter the number of men obtained by the call, allow me to take the case assumed by you in your letter to the Governor of Vermont. In that case you state that 6,000 men are required of Vermont and New Hampshire. Vermont was 500 in excess and New Hampshire 1,500. You therefore add both of these of the 6,000, making 8,000 as the basis of the call; the quotas are then:

Vermont................................... 4,000

Deduct excess............................ 500

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Number actually required................ 3,500

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