ENT, ADJUTANT-GENERALS OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, October 8, 1863.

MAJOR-GENERAL J. G. FOSTER, Commanding Department of Virginia and North
Carolina, Fort Monroe, Va.

SIR:--The proceedings of the military commission instituted for the trial
of David Wright, of Norfolk, in Special Orders Nos. 195, 196, and 197, of
1863, from headquarters Department of Virginia, have been submitted to the
President of the United States. The following are his remarks on the case:

Upon the presentation of the record in this case and the examination
thereof, aided by the report thereon of the Judge-Advocate-General, and
on full hearing of counsel for the accused, being specified that no proper
question remained open except as to the sanity of the accused, I caused a
very full examination to be made on that question, upon a great amount of
evidence, including all effort by the counsel for accused, by an expert
of high reputation in that professional department, who thereon reports to
me, as his opinion, that the accused, Dr. David M. Wright, was not insane
prior to or on the 11th day of July, 1863, the date of the homicide of
Lieutenant Sanborn; that he has not been insane since, and is not insane
now (Oct. 7, 1863). I therefore approve the finding and sentence of the
military commission, and direct that the major-general in command of the
department including the place of trial, and wherein the convict is now in
custody, appoint a time and place and carry such sentence into execution.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL MEADE.

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C., October 8, 1863.

MAJOR-GENERAL MEADE, Army of Potomac:

I am appealed to in behalf of August Blittersdorf, at Mitchell's Station,
Va., to be shot to-morrow as a deserter. I am unwilling for any boy under
eighteen to be shot, and his father affirms that he is yet under sixteen.
Please answer. His regiment or company not given me.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL MEADE.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 8, 1863.

MAJOR-GENERAL MEADE, Army of Potomac:

The boy telegraphs from Mitchell's Station, Va. The father thinks he is in
the One hundred and nineteenth Pennsylvania Volunteers. The father signs
the name "Blittersdorf." I can tell no more.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL MEADE.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 12, 1863.

MAJOR-GENERAL MEADE, Army of Potomac:

The father and mother of John Murphy, of the One hundred and ninete