my frequent inquiries I have been told that there is not and never has been any charge against me. Colonel Hoffman has steadily and persistently refused to allow me to be sent off when parties of prisoners, both of war and state, were being forwarded hence to City Point, striking my name from every list that is made out, and in consequence I have for a long time been the oldest inmate of this place. From long confinement, restricted to unaccustomed food and deprived of the exercise necessary to me, my health has become seriously impaired, and I fear that I shall again be compelled to subject myself to the surgeon's knife. My case has been examined by Captain Parker, assistant adjutant-general to the military governor of this city, and no grounds for detention found by him. You will find on inquiry that the Confederate Government has made an offer to exchange me, and is keeping a Federal officer as a hostage for me, and I cannot see why I should be debarred from the privilege of exchange accorded to all others. Colonel Hoffman has not condescended to inform me or any of my friends his reason for detaining me, and I am at a loss to know what consideration of a public nature can actuate his conduct. I am therefore induced to make this appeal to you. I was appointed in the army from Louisiana, of which State I had been a resident for several years, and have never forfeited any right as a citizen of that State. As such I claim to be exchanged in conformity with the agreement entered into respecting all persons who have been in confinement over ten days without charges being preferred against them.

I beg respectfully to ask your early attention to this matter, and am, sir, your obedient servant,

D. T. CHANDLER.

BALTIMORE, June 21, 1863.

Co. W. HOFFMAN, &c., Washington:

MY DEAR COLONEL: I have received Colonel Chandler's letter of the 14th instant, and hardly know what to say about it or about him. He was once, as you know, one of the officers of the old Third, for all of whom I always had a special regard, and I particularly valued him in early life, for he was young when with me and was a promising officer. It is now many years since I have seen him except at a glance, and I find him among the enemies of the Government that nourished and fostered him. As commissioner for the exchange of prisoners I have in reality nothing to do with him, confined as he was for attempting to run the blockade. He is not a prisoner in such a sense as brings him as such under my notice.

He claims, I see, to be a Louisianian, having been appointed from there, but I had supposed he looked upon Maryland as his State. In either case his position is a bad one. As the latter, he was taken attempting to go South-attempting to communicate with the enemy. As the former it might be considered as still worse, for what has a Louisianian to do in Maryland at this time, and after observing everything attempt a return to Louisiana, if that was his destination? The cartel does not apply to him in any event, for he was not arrested within the limits of what the South claims; was not in the army, and if claimed by the South as a Louisianian he might be considered in a most dangerous position here. Besides, fro a long time the commissioner from Richmond has refused to pay any attention to the cartel except as it suited his own convenience, and has declared even that he will pay no attention to it until the North agrees to terms which, if accepted, would be