wounded prisoners but the accommodations will be poor. A fatigue party is now at work policing the camp. I would respectfully recommend a more judicious arrangement of the barracks and that some of the temporary barracks at Camp Carrington be removed to within the inclosure. The camp may then be made to accommodate 4,000 prisoners. What disposition shall be made of the rebel surgeons who accompany the prisoners? Of the force stationed here there are only 224 men for guard duty. There is a regiment stationed here, the Seventy-first Indiana Volunteers (Colonel Biddle), which has 738 men. Of these 504 are paroled, having been recently captured in Kentucky. The number of secession sympathizers and anti-war and anti-administration politicians here renders it injudicious to keep many rebel prisoners at Camp Morton without an officer of firmness and experience in command. I leave for Cincinnati this evening.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. FREEDLEY,

Captain, Third Infantry.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, January 31, 1863.

Major-General GRANT, Memphis:

The commissary-general of prisoners has referred to me a list of exchanges effected by General Dodge on the 19th of December. General Dodge was not authorized by the cartel to make exchanges and such assumption of authority necessarily leads to difficulty and trouble.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., January 31, 1863.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

SIR: In the case of the Rev. M. P. Gaddis, chaplain of the Second Ohio Regiment, I have the honor to report that the circumstances appear to be these as gathered from the papers submitted:

The steamer Hastings on the 13th instant was passing down the Cumberland River from Nashville bound to Louisville having on board 212 wounded soldiers of the U. S. Army, and at a point some thirty-five miles from Nashville fell into the hands of an armed force acting under Confederate authority, whose commander observing that she was a sanitary vessel gave her permission to pass "without molestation," but on discovering soon after some cotton bales on board of the vessel on which some of the wounded men were lying he gave orders to remove and burn it. Chaplain Gaddis, who was on board, appears to have assumed command of the vessel, and by his interposition representing the danger to the wounded if disturbed he obtained permission to proceed with the vessel and with the cotton upon a promise made by him, not as chaplain but in his individual capacity, to burn the cotton "on the wharf" at Louisville or return within twenty days and deliver himself up to the Confederate authorities as a prisoner of war.

On arriving at Louisville and reporting the circumstances General Boyle ordered, January 19, that the cotton should not be burned and that Chaplain Gaddis should not return to the Confederate authorities. This order was approved by General Wright, commanding Department of the Ohio, by an order dated at Cincinnati, January 21, but subsequently,