RICHMOND, June 2, 1863. General R. E. LEE, Fredericksburg, Va.: The prisoners captured and paroled by Stoneman have not yet been exchanged, but will be as soon as the list is completed, now nearly ready. S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General. HAMPDEN SIDNEY COLLEGE, VA., June 2, 1863. Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War. SIR: There seems no longer to be the slightest doubt that the Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, is within our lines, and the rumors of the last two days seem to indicate that he is or soon will be in Richmond if permitted by the Government to go there. I am not forgetful of the many delicate questions touching the dignity and policy of our Government raised by this attempt of Mr. Lincoln to make a "Botany Bay" of the Confederacy, nor can I undertake to say how they can be or ought to be settled. I have the utmost confidence in the wisdom of the Government to settle them in such a way as best comports with our dignity and affords the Government of the United States no possible advantage either over us or over Mr. Vallandigham. It seems most probable to me that our Government will allow Mr. Vallandigham to remain in the Confederacy on parole if he desires it. If so his residence must be subject to your control. It ought to be known to you whether he is paroled or not. I therefore write to you to ask your permission or if this matter is not under your control the permission of the proper authorities to invite Mr. Vallandigham to reside with me here in Prince Edward County during his exile. I extend this invitation to him under permission of the Government because I know him well, having been in college with him, where we were intimate friends, and having corresponded with him since, especially during the session of the Federal Congress immediately preceding Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. I know him to be a gentleman and a man of honor for whom I may safely undertake any obligation which the Government may require of me as his host while he remains with us. As I do not know where to address Mr. Vallandigham I inclose my invitation* to him unsealed in this letter and ask you to read it; and if you give me leave to invite him will you do me and him the kindness to add his address which I take for granted is known to you, and having sealed it to have it forwarded to him? You will very naturally desire to know something about me. I therefore take the liberty of referring you to Capt. Richard Morton, of the Niter Bureau; Reverend Doctor Brown, editor of the Central Presbyterian, and Reverend Doctor Moore, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Richmond. I deem it unnecessary to multiply references. I remain, respectfully, your obedient servant, J. M. W. CHARLES MARTIN. WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, June 3, 1863. (Care surgeon in charge of hospital, Harrisonburg, Va.) SIR: Your letter of the 28th ultimo with suggestions in regard to the negroes and officers of negro regiments that may be captured by us has *Not found. been received. In reply you are informed that the law has made provisions for the disposition of such slaves by directing them to be turned over to the State authorities. As negroes without free papers when not claimed by the owners they will be liable to be sold as slaves. JAMES A. SEDDON, Respectfully, Secretary of War. HEADQUARTERS PAROLED AND EXCHANGED PRISONERS, Col. B. S. EWELL, COLONEL: I would most respectfully request that you give me some instructions in regard to future action in providing for paroled and exchanged prisoners. Many of the men are in a destitute condition, having no clothes or money, and the quartermaster here declares that the men are still under the jurisdiction of General Pemberton and not that of General Maury. The men are very comfortably situated here, requiring no tents, as they occupy the Fair Grounds, and they are much less liable to desert or straggle from camp than when in Jackson, Miss. My own opinion is that this would be a most desirable place for a permanent camp, and if your views are consonant with mine I trust you will authorize me to make public such orders as will insure the prompt dispatch of paroled prisoners from other posts, Mr. Robert Ould, agent for exchange, Richmond, Va., having notified me of the necessity of keeping these men in camp in order to effect exchange. As I cannot longer permit the men to suffer I have ordered Lieutenant Gillenwater to proceed to Jackson and procure the payment of men and officers now in camp and those attached to my department. Awaiting your instructions and orders as to the foregoing, I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant, HENRY C. DAVIS, Major, Commanding Paroled and Exchanged Prisoners. P. S.-I have daily applications for leave of absence from men who live within this and adjoining States who have not seen their families for nearly two years. Am I at liberty to grant them a short furlough for ten, fifteen or twenty days? H. C. D. OFFICE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS, Capt. W. H. Hatch, assistant adjutant-general, Provisional Army, C. S., having reported to me for assignment to duty by order of the Secretary of War is hereby authorized and empowered to act for me in all matters connected with the exchange of prisoners as fully and completely as I am empowered to act and will be respected and obeyed accordingly. [General D. RUGGLES.] RO. OULD, Agent of Exchange. OKOLONA, MISS., June 4, 1863. GENERAL: About 13th ultimo I was detached from the First [Second] Mississippi State Cavalry with my company to reconnoiter the country adjoining the Memphis and Charleston Railroad in Tippah County. I proceeded to Tippah Ford, on Tippah Creek, some eight miles west of Ripley, and then halted. Whilst there Alex. Robinson came up and said he had two Federal prisoners, Twelfth Michigan Regiment, and wanted me to take charge of and turn them over to the proper authorities. I detailed Private John Kesterson to accompany Robinson with the prisoners and ordered them to be taken and delivered to Colonel Smith, commanding First [Second] Mississippi State Cavalry. They started to the point of destination about 10 o'clock in the morning (about 15th May) with the prisoners and returned to my camp about 4 o'clock in the evening, stating that the prisoners had attempted to escape and that they had shot them. I received a communication from General Smith, commanding First Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, La Grange, Tenn., May 27, 1863, which was referred to Colonel Smith, commanding First [Second] Mississippi State Cavalry, and by him referred to you. I ask your earliest attention in the premises.* I am, general, yours, very respectfully, SOL. G. STREET, Captain, Comdg. Co. A, First [Second] Mississippi State Cavalry. WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, Va., June 5, 1863. ROBERT OULD, Esq., Commissioner, &c. SIR: C. L. Vallandigham, a citizen of the United States and late a Representative in the Federal Congress, having been thrust by the violence and oppression of his Government within our Confederate lines has been held as an alien enemy, avowing himself to be still a loyal citizen of the United States, under arrest or on parole by General Braxton Bragg, commanding the Army of Middle Tennessee, and has been permitted while so under arrest or on parole to proceed to Lynchburg, Va. It is not the desire or purpose of this Government to treat this victim of unjust and arbitrary power with other than lenity and consideration, but as an alien enemy he cannot be received to friendly hospitality or allowed a continued refuge in freedom in our midst. This is due alike to our safety and to him in his acknowledged position as an enemy. You have therefore been charged with the duty, not inappropriate to the commission you hold in relation to prisoners, &c., of meeting him in Lynchburg and there assuming direction and control of his future movements. He must be regarded by you as under arrest, permitted unless in your discretion you deem it neces sary to revoke the privilege to be at large on his parole not to attempt to escape nor hereafter to reveal to the prejudice of the Confederate States anything he may see or learn while therein. You will see that he is not molested or assailed or unduly intruded upon, and extend to him the attentions and kind treatment consistent with his relations as an alien enemy. After a reasonable delay with him at Lynchburg to allow rest and recreation from the fatigues of his recent exposure and travel you will proceed with him to Wilmington, N. C., and there deliver him to the charge of Major-General Whiting, commanding in that district, by whom he will be allowed at an early convenient opportunity to take shipping for any neutral port he may prefer, whether in Europe, the Islands, or on this Continent. More full instruction on this point will be given to General Whiting, and your duty will be discharged when you shall have conducted Mr. Vallandigham to Wilmington and placed him at the disposition of that commander. JAMES A. SEDDON,, * See Smith to Street, May 27, 1863, p. 714. General BRAGG, &c. RICHMOND, VA., June 8, 1863. GENERAL: Your letter of the 3d instant was received this morning. My dispatch in relation to the Hon. Mr. Vallandigham indicated a course but little different from that which in the absence of instructions you had adopted. In furtherance of our purpose Mr. Ould, commissioner for the exchange of prisoners of war, has been sent to Lynchburg to meet Mr. Vallandigham and to conduct him to Wilmington, whence his departure for a neutral port will be facilitated by all the courtesy and kindness due to his condition. Very respectfully and truly, yours, JEFF'N DAVIS. WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, Va., June 8, 1863. His Excellency JOHN GILL SHORTER, Governor of Alabama. SIR: The official reports of General Forrest relative to the operations in Alabama and Georgia resulting in the capture of a body of the cavalry of the enemy near Rome, Ga., have been received. It does not appear from these reports that any slaves were associated as soldiers with the enemy's troops and if there were any Alabamians enlisted among them they made their escape before the capture. The probability is that Your Excellency has been misinformed on the subject. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War. WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, June 10, 1863. Brig. Gen. JOHN H. WINDER. GENERAL: S. S. Baxter, esq., commissioner for the examination of political prisoners in the city of Richmond, in his report of the 9th instant has submitted the following recommendations. The parties are almost all deserters from the Federal Army and as such the subjects of natural and unavoidable distrust. The Department is reluctant therefore to embarrass you with positive instructions as to the disposition to be made of them. With the lights before it just now there appears no reason to overrule the recommendations of the commissioner, but as circumstances presenting themselves to yourself may indicate a wiser disposition, the suggestions of Mr. Baxter are submitted to your consideration with full discretion in the premises: Daniel McCullough, Martin Schwartz, James Gedney, Harrison Jones, John Kenney, William Gardner, William Seymour, John Fisher, Charles A. Freeman desire to enlist in the Confederate Navy, and if the Navy officers are willing to receive them may be permitted to do so. Benningham (Alfred) send to Conscript Bureau. James Barry desires to enlist in Sixth Louisiana Regiment; let him do so. William Morgan, J. D. Anderson, William Maguire, Fred. Coghn, Herman Wells-these men for various reasons object to go into service. They may perhaps be made useful as laborers or mechanics and put to work under direction of provost-marshal. By order of the Secretary of War: J. A. CAMPBELL, Assistant Secretary of War. EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Richmond, June 10, 1863. Honorable SECRETARY OF WAR. SIR: I am informed that Maj. John P. Thompson (late of First Kentucky Regiment), authorized by you to raise a battalion in Kentucky, has been arrested in Owensborough, Ky., and sentenced to be shot as a spy. He was a gallant soldier and has probably been taken attempting to recruit. Brigadier-General HAGOOD. WM. PRESTON JOHNSTON, JOHN'S ISLAND, S. C., June 10, 1863. GENERAL: I beg leave to bring to your attention that the prisoners from the Rebel Troop taken while on duty beyond our picket-lines on the Edisto are still in the hands of the enemy, while Yankee prisoners since taken by Captain Mickler have been sent forward to be exchanged. These unfortunate young men we have reason to apprehend are now confined in the jail at Beaufort. The usual programme being to send their prisoners North to be kept in some of their bastiles till exchanged. There must be some special reason for treatment so extraordinary, and perhaps the insolent communication to President Davis (recently published of General Hunter), in relation to his threatened disposition of officers and slave-holders taken prisoners by him furnishes the explanation. They are doubtless kept as hostages for the safety of officers commanding negro troops and negro troops themselves who may be captured in some of their raids. They are the sons of wealthy planters or themselves owners of slaves and of some of those very negroes now in Yankee service. Just such as a cruel ingenuity would select for such a purpose. I would respectfully request that you bring to the notice of the general commanding this department this information as to their place of confinement, confident that he will take immediate steps to know why they are so kept contrary to the terms of the cartel for exchange of enlisted men still pretended to be acted upon by the Federal authorities. These unfortunate young men who have been hastily and harshly judged upon conjectural inferences from circumstantial evidence procured by daily exposure to capture on the extreme outpost and gave valuable information of the movements of the enemy in North Edisto River before the attack on Charleston, affording the information that the iron-clads were taking aboard their ammunition, by which the department commander received advice of the impend ing attack two days before it was made. Their friends look to your influence and instrumentality and solicit your earnest effort in using all the means in your power to effect their early exchange. I think something should be done and that quickly to know why they have not been exchanged to which they are entitled and for which there has been ample time. JOHN JENKINS, Major, Commanding Advanced Forces. [Indorsement.] HEADQUARTERS SECOND MILITARY DISTRICT, Respectfully forwarded. Adams' Run, June 13, 1863. The subject-matter is earnestly brought to the attention of the general commanding. JOHNSON HAGOOD, Brigadier-General, Commanding. |