I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Abraham Lincoln.

PROCLAMATION CONCERNING COMMERCE, JANUARY 10, 1865.

By the president of the united states of America: 

A Proclamation.

Whereas the act of Congress of the twenty-eighth of September, 1850, entitled “An act to create additional collection districts in the State of California, and to change the existing districts therein, and to modify the existing collection districts in the United States,” extends to merchandise warehoused under bond the privilege of being exported to the British North American provinces adjoining the United States, in the manner prescribed in the act of Congress of the third of March, 1845, which designates certain frontier ports through which merchandise may be exported, and further provides “that such other ports situated on the frontiers of the United States, adjoining the British North American provinces, as may hereafter be found expedient, may have extended to them the like privileges on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury, and proclamation duly made by the President of the United States, specially designating the ports to which the aforesaid privileges are to be extended;”

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, in accordance with the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury, do hereby declare and proclaim that the port of St. Albans, in the State of Vermont, is, and shall be, entitled to all the privileges in regard to the exportation of merchandise in bond to the British North American provinces adjoining the United States, which are extended to the ports enumerated in the seventh section of the act of Congress of the third of March, 1845, aforesaid, from and after the date of this proclamation.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred-and sixty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.

Abraham Lincoln.

By the President: 
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL B. F. BUTLER.

Executive Mansion,
Washington, January 10, 1865.

Major-general Butler, Fort Monroe, Va.: 

No principal report of yours on the Wilmington expedition has ever reached the War Department, as I am informed there.  A preliminary report did reach here, but was returned to General Grant at his request.  Of course, leave to publish cannot be given without inspection of the paper, and not then if it should be deemed to be detrimental to the public service.