“Chief of Staff: 

“Will you please ascertain if General F.P.  Blair is to be sent to General Sherman.  If not, an army-corps commander will have to be named for the Fifteenth Corps.

“U.S.  GRANT, Lieutenant-General.”

WASHINGTON, April 20, 1864.

The PRESIDENT: 

You will do me a great favor by giving the order assigning me to the command of the Seventeenth Army Corps immediately, as I desire to leave Washington the next Saturday to join the command.  I also request the assignment of Captain Andrew J. Alexander, of Third Regiment United States Cavalry, as adjutant-general of the Seventeenth Corps, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.  The present adjutant, or rather the former adjutant, Colonel Clark, has, I understand, been retained by General McPherson as adjutant-general of the department, and the place of adjutant-general of the corps is necessarily vacant.

I also request the appointment of George A. Maguire, formerly captain Thirty-first Missouri Volunteer Infantry, as major and aid-de-camp, and Lieutenant Logan Tompkins, Twenty-first Missouri Volunteer Infantry, as captain and aid-de-camp on my staff.

Respectfully,

FRANK P. BLAIR.

[Indorsements.]

APRIL 21, 1864.

HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR: 

Please have General Halleck make the proper order in this case.

A. LINCOLN.

Referred to General Halleck, chief of staff.

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, April 23, 1864.

HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.

MY DEAR SIR:  According to our understanding with Major-General Frank P. Blair at the time he took his seat in Congress last winter, he now asks to withdraw his resignation as major-general, then tendered, and be sent to the field.  Let this be done.  Let the order sending him be such as shown me to-day by the Adjutant-General, only dropping from it the names of Maguire and Tompkins.

Yours, truly,

A. LINCOLN.

[Indorsement.]

APRIL 23, 1864.

Referred to the Adjutant-General.

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON CITY, D.C., April 23, 1864.

Hon. E.M.  STANTON,

Secretary of War: 

I respectfully request to withdraw my resignation as major-general of the United States Volunteers, tendered on the 12th day of January, 1864.

Respectfully,

FRANK P. BLAIR.

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 178.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

ADJUTANT-GENERAL’S OFFICE,

Washington, April 23, 1864.

I. Major-General F.P.  Blair, jr., is assigned to the command of the
Seventeenth Army Corps.

II.  Captain Andrew J. Alexander, Third Regiment United States Cavalry, is assigned as assistant adjutant-general of the Seventeenth Army Corps, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, under the tenth section of the act approved July 17, 1862.