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[436] warmest thanks for what you have done. May peace, contentment, and happiness ever attend you, and be ever present in your household and around your fireside!

Yours truly,

William Schouler, Adjutant-General.

We find the following note among the Adjutant-General's letters, dated April 20, 1863:—

I have been ordered by His Excellency the Governor to proceed this evening to New York, to see General Wool. There is a man, a deserter, at Fort Independence, who is sentenced to be shot, and the Governor is very anxious to have the sentence commuted. General Wool has power to do it. If I am successful, I save a poor fellow's life; if unsuccessful, I will have the satisfaction of having done what I could to save it.

W. S.

The sentence was commuted, and the man's life saved; his name was David Andrews. On the return of the Adjutant-General from New York, he visited the prisoner at the fort, in company with Captain Collins, U. S. A., and reported to the Governor,—

We saw the condemned man in his cell, and had a brief conversation with him. He appears to be a harmless being, with a very weak intellect. There was nothing vicious or gross in his conversation or appearance. Both Captain Collins and myself agreed that it would be a pity to select such a person for death punishment, and that his sentence should be commuted.

Another class of cases was where men had just claims against the Government for labor performed, and articles furnished for the camps. One of them was the claim of Asa Palmer, for payment for hay, wood, and straw, furnished for ‘Camp Stanton,’ in Lynnfield, which amounted to $1,918.70. His bills were approved by the proper officers; yet he could not get his pay, because no certificates had been received at the office of the Quartermaster-General at Washington, ‘to show in what quarter he will account for the property.’ In regard to these bills and the cause of the delay, the Adjutant-General wrote to Major-General Meigs, Quartermaster-General, U. S. A., at Washington,—

1868. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.

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