[Indorsement.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 6, 1862.

Respectfully referred to Brigadier-General Porter with a request that he will examine this case and report whether there is any well-founded reason why the prisoner should not be released upon taking the oath and making the usual stipulations.

By order of the Secretary of State:

E. D. WEBSTER.

[OLD CAPITOL PRISON,] January 6, 1862.

Honorable SECRETARY OF STATE, Washington, D. C.:

I was for a time here confined as prisoner of war. My relation is now changed. I belong to Colonel Stone's staff, the Sixtieth Virginia Regiment, and as surgeon went with the militia when called out under a requisition of the governor. I performed duty as such at the Junction, and upon our own wounded near the battle-ground, and rendered service on Tuesday to your wounded soldiers in connection with Doctor Smith of the regular service, a fact I omitted to state in a letter* to General Porter.

Yours, respectfully,

WILLIAM B. DAY.

HDQRS. CITY GUARD, PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, January 13, 1862.

Brigadier General ANDREW PORTER, Provost-Marshal.

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that on the 4th instant there was received at this office a communication signed Kate Farr addressed to the Honorable William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and by him referred to you with his request indorsed thereon that you would examine the case of John B. Farr therein mentioned and report whether any well-founded reason existed why said Farr should not be discharged from custody upon taking the oath of allegiance, &c.

The communication aforesaid sets forth substantially that the writer, Kate Farr, is the daughter of John B. Farr, of Dranesville, Va., who was seized by the U. S. troops on the night of 27th of November at Dranesville upon suspicion of his disloyalty, and was brought to this city where he has ever since been confined in the Old Capitol Prison; that she procured a pass to visit her father in said prison and was there assured by him that he had always been a man of loyal sentiments, and that his feelings were deeply wounded to think that he must there thus suffer from false accusation, he also assuring her that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to swear allegiance to the Government he had always loved; that her father has a wife and young children depending upon him for protection and support, and that she had not known of any charge having been made against him, and finally that for reason of the above-recited facts and other causes she asked that her father be discharged from custody.

On the 27th day of November last eleven prisoners were received at these headquarters sent in from General McCall's division, with the following accompanying dispatch. # Upon the receipt of the prisoners

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*Not found.

#Omitted here. See Biddle to Porter, November 27, p. 1285.

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