FORT LAFAYETTE, October 23, 1861. *

Lieutenant-Colonel BURKE.

SIR: Lieutenant Wood has communicated to me the contest of your note to him of this date. Permit me to say in reply to your allusions to the course I have thought proper to pursue that you mistake me much if you suppose as you seem to do that a mere desire to embarrass or annoy you or the officers under you has prompted me to write the letters which have been returned to me. The fact that little or nothing has been done to make me or my fellow-prisoners decently comfortable is self-evident to any one who chooses to inspect our quarters, and it was on that account that I chose to speak in terms of indignant denunication of those who are responsible for the privations I suffer. If I made or sought to make the officers of the garrison the instruments to convey my complaints it was because I am denied any other alternative. The invidious allusions which you have deemed it necessary to make in regard to me I need not and do not propose now to discuss but you will permit me to remind you that if you have duties to discharge I hiave rights to vindicate. The only one of these which has not been absolutely destroyed is the right of free speech within the narow bounds of my prison and this it is my duty and purpose to defend to the last. In the exercise of this poor privilege I wrote the letters which I knew would pass through your hands. As you have forwarded to the Adjutant-General the correspondence between Lieutenant Wood and yourself I beg that you will do me the justice to forward also this note.

I remain, your obedient servant,

F. K. HOWARD.

HEADQUARTERES, Baltimore, Md., November 29, 1861.

Colonel W. W. MORRIS, Commanding Fort McHenry.

COLONEL: Please have all the state prisoners in your custod ready to go to Fort Lafayette on Monday afternoon. I include * * * Mr. Glenn. Please say to the letter that I shall be happy to discharge him from arrest on the conditions he himself proposed to me.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

MEMORANDUM.

William W. Glenn. - Released December 2, 1861, by General Dix.

W. W. MORRIS,

Colonel Second Artillery, Commanding Post.

FORT WARREN, MASS., March 3, 1862.

Hon. EDWIN M. SNANTON, Secretary of War.

SIR: For six months past I have been detained in close custody in one or other of the forts of the United States. I am I believe termed

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*This letter will be found in Vol. I, this series, at p. 653, where it was inserted before access was obtained in the Department of State to the additional correspondence found herein ralating to Howard's case. - COMPILER.

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