At this crisis, Congress having passed a law authorizing the organization of colored troops, a Massachusetts State Agent applied to him to know where, in the rebel States penetrated by our troops, would be the best points for recruiting stations. His letter in reply will possess interest, because while it furnishes the desired information, it contains the writer’s views of the subject. The best treasure, and the best blood of the nation, has been his estimate of the great and glorious sacrifice demanded in our struggle for national existence. He scorns all evasions of duty, and resorts to doubtful expedients, for relief from any of the burdens of such a war. “HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, } IN THE FIELD, NEAR ATLANTA, GA., _July 30, 1864_. } “SIR: Yours from Chattanooga, July 28th, is received, notifying me of your appointment by your State as lieutenant-colonel and provost-marshal of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, under the act of Congress approved July 4, 1864, to recruit volunteers to be credited to the States respectively. On applying to General Webster, at Nashville, he will grant you a pass through our lines to those States, and, as I have had considerable experience in those States, would suggest recruiting depots to be established at Macon and Columbus, Miss., Selma, Montgomery, and Mobile, Alabama, and Columbus, Milledgeville, and Savannah, Georgia. I do not see that the law restricts you to black recruits, but you are at liberty to collect white recruits also. It is [a] waste of time and money to open rendezvous in Northwest Georgia, for I assure you I have not seen an able-bodied man, black or white, there, fit for a soldier who was not in this army or the one opposed to it. “You speak of the impression going abroad that I am opposed to the organization of colored regiments. My opinions are usually very positive, and there is no reason why you should not know them. Though entertaining profound reverence for our Congress, I do doubt their wisdom in the passage of this law: “1st. Because civilian agents about an army are a nuisance. “2d. The duty of citizens to fight for their country is too sacred a one to be peddled off by buying up the refuse of other States. “3d. It is unjust to the brave soldiers and volunteers who are fighting, as those who compose this army do, to place them on a par with the class of recruits you are after. “4th. The negro is in a transition state, and is not the equal of the white man. “5th. He is liberated from his bondage by the act of war; and the armies in the field are entitled to all his assistance and labor and fighting _in addition_ to the proper quotas of the States.