Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, 
GENERAL ORDERS, ? 
No. 16. S 
Richmond, February 7, 1863. 
I. The special measures instituted in the Circular from this office, of 
the Bth January, ultimo, were intended to aid, and in no wise to super- 
cede the operation and rules of the regularly established system of con- 
scription. Reports have been received, that officers thus sent from the 
army have been practically setting aside the system, decisions and ex- 
emptions established under the authority of the Commandants of Con- 
scripts in the respective states, and are neglecting to make to those offi- 
cers any returns of the conscripts gathered by them. 
It is hereby ordered, that all officers acting under the authority of the 
Circular in question, shall refrain from interference with any conscripts 
already in the custody of the officers regularly on conscription duty, and 
(shall assert no claim over them, otherwise than by estimates on the com- 
mandants for the quota to which their regiments shall be entitled, under 
the principle of pro rata distribution; also, that they shall respect certifi- 
cates of exemptions issued by regular enrolling officers, reporting for deci- 
sion of the commandants any case in which the exemption may appear 
to them to have been improperly granted; that in no case shall they 
themselves grant certificates of exemption or detail; that in all doubtful 
cases or cases of appeal from their decision, they shall refer to the regular 
enrolling officers or the commandants, and that they shall furnish to the 
local enrolling officers, or the Commandants of Conscripts for the state, 
descriptive lists of all persons within conscript ages, recruited or gathered 
by them. • 
11. The Commandants of Conscripts, in making their reports to the 
Bureau of Conscription, will return separately the conscripts gathered 
and reported to them under the system instituted by the Circular above 
referred to. 
order. 
S. COOPER, 
Adjutant and Inspector General.