arest to the scene of threatened hostility would be first called on.

I had written thus far when your letter of the 26th of July last,
accompanied by one from General Wool of the 15th of July and one from
General Towsen of the 25th of July last, was handed to me. The letter
from General Wool was unexpected. His guide was the requisition on
the State, and I can not well imagine how he could suppose that the
Department would authorize a greater number of troops to be mustered and
paid than he was specially directed to receive. He was apprised fully of
the apportionment which had been made of the 10,000 volunteers, and of
the considerations which induced us to require 1,000 from Florida, 2,000
from Georgia, 2,000 from Alabama, and 2,500 from Tennessee. This force
was designated in this manner because it was in the country nearest to
the Seminoles, Creeks, and Cherokees, and in like manner near the force
designated for the western frontier, except a fraction of about 430 men
to be hereafter selected when it should be ascertained where it would be
most needed. It is therefore unaccountable to me why General Wool would
receive and muster into the service a greater number than has been
called for and placed under his command, particularly as he knew that
Tennessee had already been called upon for more volunteers than her
proportion in the general apportionment. He knows that the President
can only execute the law, and he ought to have recollected that if the
officers charged with the military operations contemplated by the law
were to use their own discretion in fixing the number of men to be
received and mustered into the service there could be no certainty in
the amount of force which would be brought into the field. His guide
was the requisition upon Tennessee for 2,500, and he should never have
departed from it.

The brave men whose patriotism brought them into the field ought to be
paid, but I seriously doubt whether any of the money now appropriated
can be used for this purpose, as all the volunteers authorized by the
act of Congress have been apportioned, and the appropriations should
be first applicable to their payment if they should be ordered into
the field. All that we can do is to bring the subject before the next
Congress, which I trust will pass an act authorizing the payment. Those
men obeyed the summons of their country, and ought not to suffer for the
indiscretion of those who caused more of them to turn out