Today in History:

794 Series II Volume II- Serial 115 - Prisoners of War

Page 794 PRISONERS OF WAR, ETC.


HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA, Baltimore, Md., September 13, 1861.

Major General JOHN E. WOOL,
Commanding Department of Virginia.

GENERAL: Lieutenant W. M. Wilson, of the Fourth Cavalry will leave these headquarters this evening with the following gentleman who have been taken in custody by order of the Government: * * * Henry May, Member of Congress. * * * The direction of the Secretary of War is to keep them in close custody, suffering no one to communicate with them and to convey them at once to Fort Monroe, there to remain in close custody until they shall be forwarded to their ultimate destination. * * *

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General, Commanding.


HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA, Fort Monroe, September 15, 1861. *

Hon. SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War.

SIR: I received yesterday from Major-General Dix a letter accompanying fifteen prisonerse arrested in Baltimore. * * * The prisoenrs Brown, May Winans and others were landed at this port yesterday afternoon and have been placed in the casemates where they are strongly guarded. * * * I would suggest that this forthress from its position and the sympathies that surround it is neither so secure nor commodious a place for the safe-keeping of these prisoners as points farther north. * * *

JOHN E. WOOL,
Major-General.

[Indorsement.]

I advise that these prisoners be sent to Fort Lafayette or Fort Hamilton as General Scott may designate; that they be allowed to receive no visitors nor to communicate on any other then purely personal or domestic matters by letters to be inspected.

W. H. S[EWARD.]


HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, September 18, 1861.

Major General JOHN E. WOOL, U. S. Army,
Commanding, &c., Fort Monroe, Va.

SIR: The General-in-Chief directs that you send by the first suitable conveyance to Fort Lafayette, N. Y., the political prisoners mentioned in your letter to the Secretary of War of the 15th instant.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.


HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, September 18, 1861.

Lieutenant Colonel MARTIN BURKE, U. S. Army,
Commanding, &c., Fort Hamilton, N. Y.

SIR: The General-in-Chief directs me to say that orders have been sent to Major-General Wool to transfer from Fort Monroe by the first

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*For full text of this letter see Vol. I, this series, p. 596.

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Page 794 PRISONERS OF WAR, ETC.