This last commission, having been issued during the recess of the Senate, expired at the end of the succeeding session, 17th July, 1862, from which date, not having been nominated to the Senate, he ceased to be a commander in the navy.

To correct the omission to nominate this officer to the Senate at its last session, I now nominate Commander Roger Perry to be a commander in the navy from the 14th September, 1855, to take his relative position on the list of commanders not recommended for further promotion.

Abraham Lincoln.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL W. S. ROSECRANS.

Executive Mansion, Washington,
February 12,1863.

Major-general Rosecrans,
Murfreesborough, Tenn.: 

Your despatch about “river patrolling” received.  I have called the Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of War, and General-in-Chief together, and submitted it to them, who promise to do their very best in the case.  I cannot take it into my own hands without producing inextricable confusion.

A. Lincoln.

TELEGRAM TO SIMON CAMERON.

Executive Mansion, Washington,
February 13, 1863.

Hon.  Simon Cameron, Harrisburg, Pa.: 
General Clay is here and I suppose the matter we spoke of will have
to be definitely settled now.  Please answer.

A. Lincoln.

TO ALEXANDER REED.

Executive Mansion, Washington,
February 22, 1863.

Rev.  Alexander Reed. My dear sir:—­Your note, by which you, as General Superintendent of the United States Christian Commission, invite me to preside at a meeting to be held this day at the hall of the House of Representatives in this city, is received.

While, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I must decline to preside, I cannot withhold my approval of the meeting and its worthy objects.

Whatever shall be, sincerely and in God’s name, devised for the good of the soldiers and seamen in their hard spheres of duty, can scarcely fail to be blessed; and whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them on the vast and long enduring consequences, for weal or for woe, which are to result from the struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, cannot but be well for us all.

The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed.