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in the action taken by them, under that law. The 2^d. art-icle of the 10^th. Sect of that law, in providing who should be exempt from military duty, enumerates the following: the Vice President of the C. S. members & officers of Congress & of the several State Legislatures, & "such other Confederate & State officers as the President, or the Governor of the respective States may certify to be necessary to the proper administration of the Confederate or State Govern-ments, as the case may be". In your proclamation of the 16^th. March you designated the officers (not including Deputy Sheriffs) who, in your judgment, were necessary for the proper administration of the Government of the State of Mississippi. In your proclamation of the 2^d. April, referring to the statute of the State authorizing every Sheriff to appoint one or more deputies, & to the necessity which existed, in order to order enforcement of the law, that there should be a police force in many Counties of the State, you declared "that all deputy Sheriffs heretofore or hereafter appointed, where appointment shall be approved by the President of the Board of Police, & the Judge of Probate of the County, are necessary In the proper administration of the State Government, & are exempt for military duty".

I have been thus careful, in referring to the facts presented by the papers submitted to me in order to show that Mr Ragsdale rests his claim to be considered exempt from Military duty upon the act of 17^th. Feby 1864, before cited, & also that Major Merwin based the discharge be granted upon that act, & your proclamation of the 2^d. April. In the view Itake of his case, it falls outside of that act, & certainly outside of your proclamation of the 9^th. May. It is very evident that his enrollment was not made under that act for it was made two months prior to this passage of that act. The only conscript laws in force at the date of said enrollment were, "An act to further provide for the public defence" approved 16^th April 1862, & "An act to amend an Act entitled "an act to further provide for the public defence," Approved 27^th. Sep^t. 1862, It does not appear, for the papers before me, that he was entitled to, or claimed exemption of either of these acts, & in neither of them is any discretion vested in the Governors