the same time with this last, I received authority to recruit for any of our regiments in the field. On the 2d day of July, 1862, in apparent compliance with the united request of the Governors of several of the loyal States, the President of the United States promulgated a requisition for 300,000 more volunteers to be enlisted under the State Governments, and to serve for three years, or during the war. The number of organizations which up to that time had been furnished by Massachusetts, was 27 regiments and 13 unattached companies of the different arms, whose whole number of men, with the addition of the recruits who had joined them after reaching the field and before the cessation of recruiting in April, 1862, was 31,377. I respectfully ask your attention to a statement arranged in tabular form, embracing the designation of each regiment and unattached company, the date when it marched from the Commonwealth, and the number of its members at the time. No official order was ever issued to this Commonwealth, within my knowledge, fixing the quota of Massachusetts under the requisition of July, 1862; but, upon a consultation had in Boston, between the proper representative of the War Department and the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts and myself, it was at the outset understood that the Massachusetts quota of that number was 15,000 men. On the same day (July 2d, 1862,) a proclamation was promulgated by the Governor announcing the call, and on the 7th, a General Order, announcing the proportion of that aggregate which each town and city should furnish. A new crusade for the Union was preached all over the Commonwealth. The unfortunate campaigns in Virginia, which resulted in the return of both our armies within the defences of Washington, aroused and inflamed the zeal of the whole people. The requisite number of men was speedily raised. On the 4th of August, 1862, the President, by his further Proclamation, called for 300,000 men in addition, to serve for nine months, exacting a draft to be made in accordance with certain regulations, which were promulgated by the Department of War. The quota of Massachusetts was fixed at 19,080. Although that number of nine months men was not raised by Massachusetts, the difference was more than supplied before the first day of January last, by an excess of men who enlisted as three years volunteers. This result will appear by the following statement: That for 19,080 nine months men is equal to one-fourth the same number of three years men, viz., (according to the method of computation followed in in the Adjutant General's office at Washington,) 4,770 Total of both calls, when reduced to three years men, 19,770 The troops furnished by the Commonwealth, and not included in the previous statements, and to be credited against the aggregate last stated, were as follows, viz.: * Six Companies only marched at this date, and the residue afterwards. |