Washington, November 1, 1861

The following order from the President of the United States, announcing the retirement from active command of the honored veteran Lieutenant general Winfield Scott, will be read by the army with profound regret: 

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON.

November 1, 1861

On the 1st day of November, A.D. 1861, upon his own application to the President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon the list of retired officers of the army of the United States, without reduction in his current pay, subsistence, or allowances.

The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that General Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the army, while the President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the nation’s sympathy in his personal affliction and their profound sense of the important public services rendered by him to his country during his long and brilliant career, among which will ever be gratefully distinguished his faithful devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the flag when assailed by parricidal rebellion.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The President is pleased to direct that Major general George B. McClellan assume the command of the army of the United States.  The headquarters of the army will be established in the city of Washington.  All communications intended for the commanding general will hereafter be addressed direct to the adjutant-general.  The duplicate returns, orders, and other papers heretofore sent to the assistant adjutant-general, headquarters of the army, will be discontinued.

By order of the Secretary of War: 
L. Thomas, Adjutant General.

ORDER APPROVING THE PLAN OF GOVERNOR GAMBLE OF MISSOURI.

Executive Mansion, Washington,

November 5, 1861.

The Governor of the State of Missouri, acting under the direction of the convention of that State, proposes to the Government of the United States that he will raise a military force to serve within the State as State militia during the war there, to cooperate with the troops in the service of the United States in repelling the invasion of the State and suppressing rebellion therein; the said State militia to be embodied and to be held in the camp and in the field, drilled, disciplined, and governed according to the Army Regulations and subject to the Articles of War; the said State militia not to be ordered out of the State except for the immediate defense of the State of Missouri, but to co-operate with the troops in the service of the United States in military operations within the State or necessary to its defense, and when officers of the State militia act with officers in the service of the United States of the same grade the officers of the United States service shall command the combined force; the State militia to be armed, equipped, clothed, subsisted, transported, and paid by the United States during such time as they shall be actually engaged as an embodied military force in service in accordance with regulations of the United States Army or general orders as issued from time to time.