Replying to yours of recent date I beg to say that it will be a very great pleasure to me to serve you in any possible way. The grounds upon which an exemption is asked for William Marsh are physical disabilities. You can readily understand that this is essentially a professional question to be settled by the doctors, and one about which I could not possibly know anything, or have any opinion. The army physicians are the very best in the whole country, and I think that a letter from me, criticizing their judgment, would do William more ham than good, for the doctors would naturally write back and ask me what I thought was the matter with William, and to give the facts upon which I based my conclusion. The army has absolutely no use for a man who is physically unable to fight, he is a dead burden and an expense to the government, and I know that the instructions from Washington are to send a man home as soon as it is ascertained that he is not physically strong. Nothing that I could possibly say could add to the force of these instructions.