WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, April 6, 1863.

Major General E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners.

GENERAL: It has been reported to this Department by Mr. Charles McClure, now at the Kirkwood House in this city, that his son, Captain McClure, of the Sixteenth Ohio Volunteers, and ten other commissioned officers, who were captured in the first attack upon Vicksburg and paroled, are now confined in the jail at Jackson, Miss., as common felons. You will please examine as to the truth of this statement and report thereupon to the Department at your earliest convenience.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

[Indorsement.]

The undersigned has already taken the necessary steps to reach the persons referred to and respectfully submits a report from Colonel Ludlow received this morning (6th of April) on the subject.

E. A. HITCHCOOCK,

Major-General of Vols., Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners.

[Inclosure.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA,
Fort Monroe, Va., April 4, 1863.

Major General E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners.

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter* of the 2nd instant relating to officers captured near Vicksburg. I had previously received a communication from Colonel Thomas C. Fletcher, Thirteenth Missouri Volunteers, dated Libbly Prison, Richmond, March 30, informing me that he and twenty other officers captured near Vicksburg on the 29th December last were in the Libbly Prison. He send me their names and among them are those of eleven officers of the Sixteenth Regiment Ohio Volunteers. I presume that they are the same as referred to by you and have been transferred form Jackson, Miss. The arrangements made will release all our officers as soon as I can deliver an equivalent number of Confederates who as I am informed are now on their way here.

Sergeant Mullen in whom you took a personal interest is released and went to Annapolis to-day. He can give you information relating to the so-called Captain Stewart, sentenced by the Confederate to be hung. I know nothing of Stewart except from Mullen's account. No one else seems to know anything about him. Mullen says that Serwant did break his parole. I have not seen Mullen myself. The above information is brought to me by an officer whom I sent to see and talk with him.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, April 6, 1863.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: The Secretary of War directs me to transmit the inclosed copies of reports received from the Adjutant-General, to whom was referred

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* Not found.

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