JUNE 4TH.—The Secretary is still sick. Having nothing better to do, and seeing that eight-tenths of the letters received are merely applications for commissions in the regular army—an organization without men—and none being granted from civil life, I employed myself writing certain articles for the press, hoping by this means to relieve the Secretary of the useless and painful labor of dictating negative replies to numberless communications. This had the sanction of both the President and the Secretary, and produced, in some measure, the desired relief.
