FORT PREBLE, Portland, Me., July 7, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

I can guard the rebel prisoners securely. The accommodations for so many are too small. Three are now sick with typhoid fever and others threatened.

GEO. L. ANDREWS,

Major Seventeenth Infantry, Commanding Post.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF HENRICO,
Richmond, July 7, 1863.

Captain CALEB SMITH,

Commanding Exchanged and Paroled Prisoners, Petersburg, Va.:

CAPTAIN: I am directed by the general commanding the department to give the following instructions for guidance:

First. The duties of the commissioners of exchange are confined entirely to the exchanging and paroling of prisoners. Immediately upon the landing of prisoners they are under your control.

Second. The inspection of all passes to go by flag-of-truce boat will be under your direction, and no one will be permitted to go on the flag-of-truce boat, or to visit City Point for that purpose, without a pass from these headquarters of from the Secretary of War.

Third. All letters going by flag of truce will pass through your hands and be closely inspected by you, and none allowed to pass except such [as] are [on] strictly private affairs.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. W. PEGRAM,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

P. S. - You will see that no person be allowed to land from the flag-of-truce boat at City Point unless you are perfectly satisfied that they are all right.

J. W. PERGAM,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Approved.

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

[JULY 8, 1863. - For articles covering the capitulation of Port Hudson, La., and reports, correspondence, &c., relating to that event, see Series I, Vol. XXVI, Part I, p. 41 et seq.]

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 8, 1863.

Colonel W. H. LUDLOW, Fort Monroe:

The Secretary of War directs that you permit such deserters and prisoners of war as you deem it safe and proper to trust to take the oath of allegiance and go North.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

(Copy to Colonel Hoffman July 10, 1863.)