HEADQUARTERS MIDDLE DEPARTMENT,
Baltimore, Md., April 14, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTONL, Secretary of War.

SIR: I telegraphed to you yesterday in regard to Colonel Drake and refered to the order he brought from General Wool in which he was authorized to enter into telegraphic communication with you on the sugject of his exchange. The same order directed the marshal of police who is under my exclusive control to make provision for Colonel Drake. If general Wool had advised me when he sent colonel Drake back the first time that it was not proper to send him to Norfolk in the preent state of things at Fortress Monroe it would have saved a great deal of annoyance; whereas my staff were under the impression, derived from the general's unexplained order to him to report and from Colonel Drake's own statement of his conversation with the general, that he came for the sole purpose of obtaining a more distinct authority from you. the general's communications with me have frequently been very curt, and if I had not been more disposed to avoid all appearnce of misunderstanding than to insist on a punctilious maintenance of my authority as commander here I could easily have found on more than one occasion just ground of complaint.

When you deem it proper for me to close the examination of stae prisoners in New York I beg you to be assured that my temporary absence will lead to no inconvenience here. Major Van Buren, my assistant adjutant-general and chief of my staff, was educated at West Point, and is one of the most efficient accomplished and indefatigable officers in his department in the service.

Major Ludlow, my senior aide-de-camp, though he has been but a few months in the service is a most intelligent active and assiduous man of business. I may say the same thing of all the other members of my staff. I found everything in perfect order on my return, and the only omission in my absence was the failure to communicate to you a fact which for want of information we ought to have had was not supposed to be a material one.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. DIX.

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS MIDDLE DEPARTMENT,
Baltimore, Md., April 14, 1862

Captain A. A. GIBSON,

Commanding Fort Delaware, Del.

CAPTAIN: Lieutenant Wilson Barstow, aide-de-camp, will deliver to you Colonel Joseph Drake, Fourth Mississippi Volunteers, C. S. Army, a prisoner of war whom you will retain in your custody.

By command of Major-General Dix:

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Major and Aide-de-Camp.

U. S. FLAG-SHIP MINNESOTA.

Hampton Roads, Va., April 15, 1862

Major General BENJAMIN HUGER,

Commanding Department, &c., Norfolk, Va.

SIR; Under date of February 12, 1862, I informed you of my having released on parole thirty-six officers and men of the Confederate Navy captured by the forces under my command.