should they do so their order of course will be obeyed. As I have said in the telegram interviews must always be in presence of an officer and the time must be regulated by your discretion. The chaplain may have the assistance of any clergyman requested by the condemned, and you may allow the surgeon to have the aid of Doctor Donahoe and any other physician you may think advisable. If you can limit the permission to those as far as reported I have no objection to their admission to the island, but [with] the understanding that they are to have no interviews or conversations with any of the prisoners.

The two companies under Captain Scovill will be ordered back to the depot as soon as their services can be dispensed with at Wheeling. If you have not a supply of arms for pickets procure as many as you may require.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

FORT MONROE, May 5, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

I have just returned from City Point and have brought with me all our officers who have been held by the Confederates and whom I send to Annapolis to-night. I have made the following declarations of exchanges:

1. All officers and enlisted men and all persons whatever may have been their classification or character who have been delivered at City Point, Va., up to the 6th of May, 1863.

2. All officers who have been captured and released on parole up to April 1, 1863, wherever they may have been captured.

3. All enlisted men who have been captured in North Carolina and Virginia and released on parole up to the 1st of March, 1863.

I will be in Washington on the 7th instant.

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

(Same to General Hitchcock.)

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 5, 1863.

Major-General SCHENCK, Commanding at Baltimore:

No persons who went South January 8 by flag of truce had any promise or intimation that he or she could return again, but it was expressly understood and stated that no such assurance or understanding could be entertained.

L. C. TURNER,

Judge-Advocate.

CIRCULAR.] HDQRS. THIRD. DIV., SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS,

Jackson, Tenn., May 5, 1863.

The general commanding intends to protect to the fullest extent of his power all citizens of this district in the enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.