OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., May 10, 1863.

Colonel ROBERT NUGENT,

Acting Assistant Provost-Marshal-General, New York City.

COLONEL: Your letter of the 6th instant is received. The Government furnishes transportation to employer who have been captured and released on parole only to some point convenient within our lines where they can find employment. They are entitled to pay up to the time of their delivery to our authorities. The laborers referred to in your letter if Government employer are entitled to pay up to the time of their arrival in New Orleans. Transportation and subsistence was furnished to them from there to New York and now they must find some new employment. No provision of any kind is made for rebel prisoners of war who are released on taking the oath of allegiance. They must be content to provide for themselves by their own labor as better Union citizens do.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

FORT MONROE, May 10, 1863.

Honorable G. V. FOX, Assistant Secretary of the Navy:

The last declaration of exchanges does not include the enlisted men of the Mercedita, Hatteras and other vessels who have not been delivered at City Point. Send me the names of all the vessels whose crews have been paroled and their probable number and I will send you a declaration of them immediately.

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA, Fort Monroe, May 10, 1863.

Honorable G. V. FOX,
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D. C.:

I have received no lists of names and number of captured navy officers and men; only the general mention of the vessel and date of capture. Your letter did not indicate clearly who had been paroled or who were yet in confinement. Please furnish me these date and the exchanges can be at once declared.

The arrangement declaring all naval captures exchanged to a certain date would require you to release all captured by you to that date. Will you do this? If not it will be better to have exchanged all your officers and men as soon as you give me their names and number of giving military captures as equivalents.

Please inform me where those who have not been paroled and released are now confined. Do you not think you have had every benefit of exchange as far as information furnished me could give it?

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

NEW YORK, May 10, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

SIR: By direction of the executive committee of the United States Sanitary Commission I have the honor to ask your attention to the