EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON. On the 1st day of November, A.D. 1861, upon his own application to the President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon the list of retired officers of the army of the United States, without reduction in his current pay, subsistence, or allowances. The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that General Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the army, while the President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the nation's sympathy in his personal affliction and their profound sense of the important public services rendered by him to his country during his long and brilliant career, among which will ever be gratefully distinguished his faithful devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the flag when assailed by parricidal rebellion. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The President is pleased to direct that MajorGeneral George B. McClellan assume the command of the army of the United States. The headquarters of the army will be established in the city of Washington. All communications intended for the commanding general will hereafter be addressed direct to the adjutant-general. The duplicate returns, orders, and other papers heretofore sent to the assistant adjutant-general, headquarters of the army, will be discontinued. By order of the Secretary of War: L. THOMAS, Adjutant General. ORDER APPROVING THE PLAN OF GOVERNOR GAMBLE OF MISSOURI. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, November 5, 1861. The Governor of the State of Missouri, acting under the direction of the convention of that State, proposes to the Government of the United States that he will raise a military force to serve within the State as State militia during the war there, to cooperate with the troops in the service of the United States in repelling the invasion of the State and suppressing rebellion therein; the said State militia to be embodied and to be held in the camp and in the field, drilled, disciplined, and governed according to the Army Regulations and subject to the Articles of War; the said State militia not to be ordered out of the State except for the immediate defence of the State of Missouri, but to co-operate with the troops in the service of the United States in military operations within the State or necessary to its defence, and when officers of the State militia act with officers in the service of the United States of the same grade the officers of the United States service shall command the combined force; the State militia to be armed, equipped, clothed, subsisted, transported, and paid by the United States during such time as they shall be actually engaged as an embodied military force in service in accordance with regulations of the United States Army or general orders as issued from time to time. In order that the treasury of the United States may not be burdened with the pay of unnecessary officers, the governor proposes that, although the State law requires him to appoint upon the general staff an adjutant-general, a commissary-general, an inspector-general, a quartermaster-general, a paymaster-general, and a surgeon-general, each with the rank of colonel of cavalry, yet he proposes that the Government of the United States pay only the adjutant-general, the quartermaster-general, and inspector-general, their services being necessary in the relations which would exist between the State militia and the United States. The governor further proposes that, while he is allowed by the State law to appoint aides-de-camp to the governor at his discretion, with the rank of colonel, three only shall be reported to the United States for payment. He also proposes that the State militia shall be commanded by a single major-general and by such number of brigadier-generals as shall allow one for a brigade of not less than four regiments, and that no greater number of staff officers shall be appointed for regimental, brigade, and division duties than as provided for in the act of Congress of the 22d July, 1861; and that, whatever be the rank of such officers as fixed by the law of the State, the compensation that they shall receive from the United States shall only be that which belongs to the rank given by said act of Congress to officers in the United States service performing the saine duties. The field officers of a regiment in the State militia are one colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, company officers are a and one major, and the captain, a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant. The governor proposes that, as the money to be disbursed is the money of the United States, such staff officers in the service of the United States as may be necessary to act as disbursing officers for the State militia shall be assigned by the War Department for that duty; or, if such cannot be spared from their present duty, he will appoint such persons disbursing officers for the State militia as the President of the United States may designate. Such regulations as may be required, in the judgment of the President, to insure regularity of returns and to protect the United States from any fraudulent practices shall be observed and obeyed by all in office in the State militia. The above propositions are accepted on the part of the United States, and the Secretary of War is directed to make the necessary orders upon the Ordnance, Quartermaster's, Commissary, Pay, and Medical departments to carry this agreement into effect. He will cause the necessary staff officers in the United States service to be detailed for duty in connection with the Missouri State militia, and will order them to make the necessary provision in their respective offices for fulfilling this agreement. All requisitions upon the different officers of the United States under this agreement to be made in substance in the same mode for the Missouri State militia as similar requisitions are made for troops in the service of the United States; and the Secretary of War will cause any additional regulations that may be necessary to insure regularity and economy in carrying this agreement into effect to be adopted and communicated to the Governor of Missouri for the government of the Missouri State militia. [Indorsement.] November 6, 1861. This plan approved, with the modification that the governor stipulates that when he commissions a major-general of militia it shall be the same person at the time in command of the United States Department of the West; and in case the United States shall change such commander of the department, he (the governor) will revoke the State commission given to the person relieved and give one to the person substituted to the United States command of said depart ment. A. LINCOLN. A REPLY TO THE MINISTER FROM SWEDEN.1 November 8, 1861. SIR: I receive with great pleasure a Minister from Sweden. That pleasure is enhanced by the information which preceded your arrival here, that his Majesty, your sovereign, had selected you to fill the mission upon the grounds of your derivation from an ancestral stock identified with the most glorious era of your country's noble history, and your own eminent social and political standing in Sweden. This country, sir, maintains, and means to maintain, the 1 Moore. |