colored troops will cease from the date of the receipt of these instructions, except for new regiments to be raised or for regiments now in process of organization.

Second. When a new regiment or organization is completed a roster of the officers appointed thereto, showing date of appointment and muster in each case, will be forwarded to the Adjutant-General's Office for the action of the President, by whom all appointments and promotions in such organizations will henceforward be made.

OLD ORGANIZATIONS.

Third. Regimental or other commanders of old organizations will forward their recommendations for appointments and promotions through the proper commanding generals, who are requested to indorse their opinions thereupon, and at the same time nominate meritorious non-commissioned officers and soldiers of white regiment for appointment as second lieutenants to fill the vacancies likely to be caused by the promotions recommended. Recommendations of this character must state in each case the strength of the command to which the party in nominated for appointment. In the case of a company officer the letter of the company must be given, and when a junior officer is recommended for promotion in preference to a senior of the same grade, the cause disqualifying the senior officer must be clearly stated.

Commanding generals of armies, departments, or corps are authorized to convene examining boards, when in their opinion it shall be necessary and expedient, to determine the qualifications of candidates for promotion in the line or appointment as second lieutenants.

Field officers for old organizations will be appointed as proscribed by Circulars Numbers 49, of 1864, form this office, a copy of which is herewith.*

Fourth. No provision herein contained will be construed as doing away with existing regulations governing the subject of musters.

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

E. D . TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, March 22, 1865.

Whereas, by a resolution of Congress, approved March 3, 1865, the Secretary of War is "directed to cause a strict inspection to be made of the Quartermaster's Department as soon as practicable after the passage of this resolution, and a comparison to be made between the reports of the officers in charge of the quartermasters" deports at New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, and Louisville, and the articles on hand," in is ordered:

1. That Brigadier General W. S. Ketchum, U. S. Volunteers, Bvt. Brigadier General E. Schriver, Inspector-General U. S. Army, and Robert M. Strebeing, esq., of New York City, be, and they are hereby, appointed a special commission to make, as speedily as possible, the inspection and comparison directed to be made in the said resolution.

2. That all officers and miliary store-keepers of the Quartermaster's Department shall produce and exhibit to the said commissioners, or any of them, upon their request, all the books, reports, vouchers, and other papers that they may call for, and furnish copies when

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*See p. 459.

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