OFFICE COMMISSIONER FOR EXCHANGE,

Fort Monroe, July 30, 1863.

Honorable ROBERT OULD,

Commissioner for Exchange, &c., Richmond, Va.:

SIR: This will inform you, and through you the authorities under whom yet act, that General John H. Morgan and his officers will be placed in close confinement and held as hostages for the members of Colonel Streight's command who have not been delivered in compliance with the conditions of the cartel agreed to by Major-General Dix and Major-General Hill.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. A. MEREDITH,

Brigadier-General, U. S. Vols., and Commissioner for Exchange.

MILITARY PRISON, Alton, Ill., July 30, 1863.

Colonel W. HOFFMAN,

Commissary-General of Prisoners, Washington, D. C.:

COLONEL: Doctor Keeney, surgeon, U. S. Army, who inspected this prison and the prison hospital some days ago, a copy of whose report has I presume been sent you, recommended that a building for smallpox hospital should be procured immediately outside the prison walls. To procure a building suitable for the purpose is, I find, a difficult matter, for after a thorough search for several days, both in the city and out, I have found no building which can be that is at all suitable for a hospital. Doctor Williams, of this city, whom I have employed as an assistant in the prison hospital, in compliance with the recommendation of Surgeon Keeny, suggests that a temporary building of plank could be erected upon some vacant lot near the city for smallpox patients. This I suppose can be done at a comparatively small expense, and should the proposition be entertained, I will be obliged if you will advise me whether the coast of such a building can be defrayed from the prison fund, or must the quartermaster's department pay the expense of its erection?

The Seventy-seventh Ohio Volunteers, which has been posted at this place for the past twelve months, was relieved to-day, by order of the commander of the Department of the Missouri, by the Thirty-seventh Iowa, generally called the Silver Grays, it being composed entirely of old men.

I have the honor to be, sir, with much respect, your obedient servant,

T. HENDRICKSON,

Major Third Infantry, Commanding the Prison.

JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL'S OFFICE, July 31, 1863.

The SECRETARY OF WAR:

The prisoner, George W. Thompson, appears to have been arrested by the provost-marshal of Western Virginia, or by soldiers acting under his direction. It does not, however, appear on what grounds or for what purpose the arrest was made, though from the returns of the jailer it would seem that he claimed to hold him as a hostage by order of the Governor as constitutional commander-in-chief of Virginia