In this connection it may be stated that when the Soldiers' Asylum near Augusta, Me., was burned, Gov. Head was appointed to the charge of that institution during the illness of the deputy-governor, and subsequently rebuilt the establishment. He had previously, as a contractor, built several miles of the Concord & Portsmouth Railroad between Suncook and Candia, and also the road-bed and bridges from Suncook to Hooksett, and the branch line from Suncook to Pittsfield. In early life he was elected to various town offices; was commissioned a deputy-sheriff, and was a representative in the legislature from Hooksett in 1861 and 1862. The appointment which brought him most conspicuously before the public was that of adjutant, inspector, and quartermaster general of the state, which he received from Gov. Gilmore, March 26, 1864. He was called to that office at a period when the republic was in one of the most serious crises of the great civil war, and when the loyal people of New Hampshire were putting forth every effort to enlist the men called for under the President's proclamation of the preceding month. On entering the office he found every department lamentably incomplete, but little matter having been collated in relation to the equipping of the troops or their achievements in the field, although the state had, up to that time, furnished twenty-six thousand soldiers. In truth, not a full set of muster-in rolls of any regiment was found in the office. Notwithstanding these obstacles, and with no appropriation to draw upon, Gen. Head promptly entered upon the duties of his position, procuring the necessary outfit for the office, and upon his own responsibility employing clerks. He did this trusting in the legislature for re-imbursement, which it not only cheerfully made, but made all additional appropriations that were called for. The faithful manner in which all the clerical work was performed, the method and persistency shown in hunting up and placing on file the records of our soldiers, and the system exhibited in preserving and filing the valuable and extensive correspondence,--were all worthy of the greatest praise. The reports issued during Gen. Head's administration not only give the name and history of every officer and soldier who went into the service from our state, but they embrace biographical sketches of all the field officers who fell in battle or who died of disease during the war, together with a brief history of all the organizations, giving their principal movements from their departure to their return home. These books also include the military history of New Hampshire from 1623 to 1861, the data for which were gathered with great perseverance and under many discouragements from various sources in this and other states and from the rolls in the war department at Washington, thus making the united reports a work of inestimable value to the present and coming generations, and, at the same time, constituting an invaluable