WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, June 21, 1862. Major-General MCCLELLAN. GENERAL: Your letter with the accompanying letter of Colonel Key respecting his conference with Howell Cobb, acting as a brigadiergeneral in the rebel army, has been received and laid before the President according to your request. The President's instructions respecting any further effort at exchange will be speedily communicated to you. I will only remark now that it is not deemed proper for officers bearing flags of truce in respect to the exchange of prisoners to hold any conference with the rebel officers upon the general subject of the existing contest or upon any other subject than what relates to the exchange of prisoners. Yours, truly, EDWIN M. STANTON, HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Maj. Gen. JOHN A. DIX, Commanding Fort Monroe: EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. FORT MONROE, June 21, 1862. Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War: I The papers in Judge Carmichael's case were left in Baltimore. will procure them and report without delay. Governor Peirpoint, of Western Virginia, has appointed commissioners to superintend the municipal election at Norfolk on Tuesday next and called on General Viele for a military force to sustain them. Shall it be furnished, and is Governor P. to be recognized as Governor of this portion of Virginia? I have had no instructions on this point. JOHN A. DIX, WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, June 21, 1862. Col. RICHARD OWEN, SIR: Your letter of the 17th instant to Capt. J. A. Ekin, U. S. Army, reporting the fact that many prisoners now under your charge at Camp Morton would prefer remaining in prison rather than to be released and sent within the rebel lines, has been submitted to this Department, and in reply the Secretary of War directs me to state that when a system of general exchanges shall be established none of the prisoners of war who will take the oath of allegiance and as to whose future loyalty there is no question will be forced within the rebel lines. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, C. P. WOLCOTT, Assistant Secretary of War. GENERAL ORDERS, WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, S In every case of prisoners taken in arms against the United States who may be tried and sentenced to death the record of the tribunal before which the trial was had will be forwarded for the action of the President of the United States, without whose orders no such sentence in such cases will be executed. Asst. Quartermaster-General, No. 6 State street, New York. SIR: A telegram was sent you on the 15th instant informing you of the expected arrival in New York of Pierre Soulé and Adolphe Mazureau, political prisoners from New Orleans, and conveying orders from the Secretary of War that they should be confined in Fort Lafayette and allowed to hold no communication with any person until further orders. On the 18th instant your telegram was received in these words: The prisoners Pierre Soulé and Adolphe Mazureau have arrived here from New Orleans by the steamer Ocean Queen and have been sent to Fort Lafayette as directed. Lieutenant-Colonel Burke reports their arrival the next day, June 19, and their confinement at Fort Lafayette. The Secretary of War is informed that instead of being allowed no communication with any person and being taken from the ship direct to Fort Lafayette these prisoners on landing went to a hotel in New York City and were taken in charge by the U. S. marshal and were not delivered at Fort Lafayette until one or two days after they arrived in New York. He directs that you report without delay the facts and circumstances of the case. I am, sir, &c., L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, General R. E. LEE, Commanding General. I beg leave to express my appreciation of your own views and sentiments, and am, Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 4 R R-SERIES II, VOL IV HEADQUARTERS, Fort Monroe, Va., June 21, 1862. Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. SIR: I am advised by a letter from Brig. Gen. John H. Winder dated at Richmond, Va., the 17th instant that the Rev. David Lee is released from his parole and to be considered exchanged when informed that the Rev. Townsend McVeigh, now on parole at Richmond, is released from his parole and declared to be exchanged. I have the honor to state that I have given the necessary notice to General Winder, so that the exchange is completed and the reverend gentlemen referred to are respectively released from their paroles. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, HDQRS. MILITARY DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON, D. C., Capt. S. P. REMINGTON, Scott's Cavalry. SIR: You will proceed with your command to the north part of Fairfax County and Loudoun County, and having carefully ascertained the names and residences of the leading secessionists you will seize their horses and mules to the number of 100. You will not take the horse of any Union man, and when you are in doubt as to the loyalty of a citizen you will not disturb his property. You will avoid taking the property of families in reduced circumstances, and unless in the case of a disloyal citizen of ample means you will not take all the horses belonging to one family. You will arrest any of the justices who recently met with General Asa Rogers to hold a county court whom you may meet with. You will procure your subsistence from disloyal citizens. You will keep a careful record of your proceedings and report to these headquarters on your return. JAMES S. WADSWORTH, OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, COMMANDING OFFICER, Camp Douglas, Chicago, Ill. SIR: Pursuant to paragraph 4, General Orders, No. 60, of the 6th instant from the War Department, all medical officers held as prisoners of war at Camp Douglas will be immediately and unconditionally discharged. If necessary employ a private physician to attend the sick and report immediately all the facts to this office. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, (Similar letters sent to commanding officers of all military prisons.) OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Maj. W. S. PIERSON, Commanding Johnson s Island, Sandusky, Ohio. June 21, 1862. SIR: The following-named officers, prisoners of war at the depot on Johnson's Island, will be immediately transferred to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, under a suitable guard, viz: Col. D. M. Anvil, One hundred and thirty-ninth Virginia Militia; Col. Joel A. Battle, Twentieth Tennessee; Col. J. M. Clark, Forty-sixth Tennessee; Col. William C. Mitchell, Fourteenth Arkansas; Col. W. A. Quarles, Forty-second Tennessee; Col. J. M. Simonton, First Mississippi; Col. J. M. Smith, Eleventh Arkansas; Lieut. Col. W. T. Avery, First Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi; Lieut. Col. J. W. Johnson, Forty-sixth Tennessee; Lieut. Col. W. A. Jones, Fifty-fifth Tennessee; Lieut. Col. M. S. Miller, Eleventh Arkansas; Lieut. Col. R. C. Wood, Adams' [Mississippi] Cavalry. Send a complete roll with them, and under the head of remarks give the date of their joining the depot and where from and the date of their transfer to Fort Warren. There are possibly among the prisoners some who are disposed to create disturbances, and if so you may select three or four of those most conspicuous in this way and transfer them to Fort Warren with the above-named. My letter of the 22d May required all enlisted men with certain exceptions to be sent to Camp Chase. This embraces all who are not commissioned officers, among them sergeant-majors, quartermaster's sergeants, &c. By the first opportunity you will send all those now at the depot to Camp Chase, furnishing a complete roll with them. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, Lieut. Col. Eighth Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners. Hon. W. H. SEWARD. NEW YORK, June 21, 1862. DEAR SIR: Mr. George F. Thompson was editor of the New York Daily News prior to January, 1860, during which time Fernando Wood and W. Drake Parsons were owners, since which time I think he has had nothing to do with that (the News) concern. Perhaps Mr. Gideon J. Tucker, of this city, may give you more information regarding Ben. Wood than any one else, as he was editor under the ownership of that paper by Ben. Wood, who bought out Fernando Wood's interest on the 14th of May, 1860. Perhaps Mr. Parsons would be able to give you some information, although this is entirely conjecture on my part. I do not sign this as I do not wish to be drawn into any matter in which Ben. Wood is concerned. P. S.-The accompanying notice is cut from the New York Express of this day. [Inclosure.] THE CASE OF HON. BENJAMIN WOOD. JUNE 21.-By order of the Secretary of War George F. Thompson, of this city, was sent to Washington last night in charge of a marshal's officer to give testimony in relation to the alleged treason of Benjamin Wood. Mr. Thompson was formerly clerk of Fernando Wood during the mayoralty of the latter, and prior to that time was one of the chief editors of the Daily News. General R. E. LEE, HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Commanding Military Forces, Richmond, Va. GENERAL: Capt. Mathew Donovan and Lieut. F. P. H. Rogers, Sixteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, have been missing since the skirmish on the 18th instant near White Oak Swamp and are supposed to have fallen into the hands of your troops on that occasion. I respectfully solicit information respecting them in order that I may be enabled to relieve the anxiety of their friends touching their fate. I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, GEO. B. MCCLELLAN, Major-General Commanding. [Indorsement.] Capt. M. Donovan is at present confined in this prison, but no such person as F. P. H. Rogers, lieutenant, Sixteenth Massachusetts, has ever been received here. General HALLECK: TH. P. TURNER, Lieutenant, Commanding [Libby Prison]. CAMP NEAR FLORENCE, June 22, 1862. The paroled prisoners at Nashville are mutinous and disorderly and there is not sufficient force there to control them. If discharged there it is to be apprehended that they would cause much disturbance before they could be got off. Do you approve of my sending them to some point on the Ohio and having them mustered out there? D. C. BUELL, MADISON, WIS., June 22, 1862. Lieut. Col. W. HOFFMAN, Eighth Infantry, Detroit, Mich. COLONEL: I have the honor to transmit a petition* from Prisoner C. A. Stanton, calling himself captain, &c. I also forwarded lately a copy of the proceedings of a court of inquiry relating to the shooting of one of the prisoners. I sent off about two weeks ago a detachment of convalescents of about forty prisoners and to-morrow will send off about fifty more, leaving only about twelve or fifteen in the hospital. On the 30th I will muster the prisoners remaining and will send the muster-roll to you, which will show the condition of all that were left here on the 1st of June and the alterations since that date. The day before yesterday (the 20th) two of the hospital attendants escaped. It is due entirely to the idiotic inefficiency of the guard. They are said to have gone off in the midday train, but the fact was not reported to me for twenty-four hours. The * Omitted. |