HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S. C., June 16, 1864.

Major General SAMUEL JONES,

Commanding Confederate Forces, Dept. S. C., Ga., and Fla.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to request that flags of truce covering official communications may be instructed to meet our pickets at Port Royal Ferry, at which point only is it convenient to receive them.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. G. FOSTER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S. C., June 16, 1864.

Major General SAMUEL JONES,

Commanding Confederate Forces, dept. of S. C., Ga., and Fla.:

GENERAL: I have to acknowledge the receipt this day of your communication of the 13th instant, informing me that 5 generals and 45 field officers of the U. S. Army, prisoners of war, have been sent to Charleston for safe-keeping; that they have been turned over by you to Brigadier-General Ripley, with instructions to see that they are provided with quarters in a part of the city occupied by non-combatants, the majority of which latter, you state, are women and children. You add that you deem it proper to inform me that it is a part of the city which has been for many months exposed to te fire of our guns.

Many months since Major-General Gillmore, U. S. Army, notified General Beauregard, then commanding at Charleston, that the city would be bombarded. This notice was given that non-combatants might be removed and thus women and children be spared from harm. General Beauregard, in a communication to General Gillmore, dated August 22, 1863, informed him that the non-combatant population of Charleston would be removed with all possible celerity. That women and children have been since retained by you in a part of the city which has been for many months exposed to fire is a matter decided by your own sense of humanity. I must, however, protest against your action in thus placing defenseless prisoners of war in a position exposed to constant bombardment. It is an indefensible act of cruelty, and can be designed only to prevent the continuance of our fire upon Charleston. That city is a depot for military supplies. It contains not merely arsenals but also foundries and factories for the manufacture of munitions of war. In its ship-yards several armed iron-clads have already been completed, while others are still upon the stocks in course of construction. Its wharves and the banks of the rivers on both sides of the city are lined with batteries. To destroy these means of continuing the war is therefore our object and duty. You seek to defeat this effort, not by means known to honorable warfare, but by placing unarmed and helpless prisoners under our fire.

I have forwarded your communication to the President, with the request that he will place in my custody an equal number of