[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
September 9, 1861.

Respectfully referred to the general-in-chief with the request that some place be immediately designated for the safe-keeping of the prisoners now at Baltimore.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General, U. S. Army.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA,
Baltimore, Md., September 9, 1861.

Honorable GEORGE WILLIAM BROWN,

Mayour of the City of Baltimore:

SIR: Your letter of the 5th instant* wad duly received. I cannot without acquiescing in the violation of a principle assent to the payment of an arearage to the members of the old city police as suggested in the last paragraph of your letter. It was the intention of my letter to prohibit any payment to them subsequently to the day on which it was written. You will please therefore to consider this as the further order referred to by you.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, September 10, 1861.

Major General JOHN A. DIX, U. S. Army,

Commanding, &c., Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Md.

SIR: Your letter of the 5th and 8th instant to Major-General McClellan on the subject of the prisoners confined in Fort McHenry have been referred to the general-in-chief who directs me to reply as follows: You will please send under a sufficient guard all the political prisoners and prisoners of war now at Fort McHenry except those indicted but including Marshal Kane by an inland route to New York, preferably by the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Some of the principal men among them will be sent to Fort Lafayette and delivered to Lieutenant Colonel Martin Burke; the remainder will be deliverd to Colonel Loomis, commanding at Governor's Island. Directions will be sent from this office to those officers to receive them. * * *

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

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA,
Baltimore, Md., September 12, 1861.

Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General Washington, D. C.

COLONEL: I have the honor to report that the requirements of your letter of the 10th instant have been carried out as follows:

Thirty political prisoners left Fort McHenry this day for Forts Columbus and Lafayette via the dealware and Chesapeake Canaland Camden and Amboy Railroad under a guard of eighteen enlisted men

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*Not found.

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