Captain Mulford is also instructed to bring back the surgeons unless he receives all our surgeons now confined in Richmond, except Doctor Rucker, whom you retain under charges, and for whom Doctor Green is held as a hostage.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

GUARD-HOUSE, Fort Monroe, June 19, 1863.

Major-General DIX, Commanding Department:

GENERAL: We, the undersigned prisoners from the neighborhood above Williamsburg, have the honor to solicit your intercession in our behalf. We were arrested as soon as your army reached our neighborhood, not because of any charge, but as a "military necessity," as we supposed, for the time being. When arrested we were at our homes, some of us not even aware that your forces were on the march. The provost-marshal at Yorktown states that no charges were preferred against us, and that it was his duty to send us here to be paroled. The circumstances of our families at home and our condition here render us most wretched indeed, and have induced us to appeal to your generosity for our release. Some of us have children without any one to care for them. At the rate everything was being swept away when we left, we are apprehensive that our families are reduced to famine by this time, and are anxious to be at liberty to make some arrangement to save them from starvation. For God's sake, general, let us have your sympathy. For the sake of humanity, relieve us from this distressing situation.

We have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, yours,

E. B. CHALLENNER.

B. B. JONES.

WM. MINOR.

WM. I. TIMBERLAKE.

MARSHALL M. MARTIN.

H. B. MORRIS.

[First indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS FORT MONROE, June 21, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded to department headquarters.

J. ROBERTS,
Colonel Third Pennsylvania Artillery, Commanding Post.

[Second indorsement.]

JUNE 21, 1863.

Captain BLAKE:

Parole these men and send them home to-morrow by way of Yorktown.

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

[Third indorsement.]

PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE, June 26, 1863.

The within named citizens were this day paroled and sent to their homes via Yorktown, Va.

W. E. BLAKE,

Captain and Aide-de-Camp, Provost-Marshal.