crews of all vessels who are now held in confinement be either the United States or the Confederate States be immediately released, equivalents from the army to be given to the party which has the excess. This proposition practically test who favors the "irregular procedures" and "inhuman precedents".

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

NORFOLK, VA., August 1, 1863.

Colonel JOSEPH HOLT,

Judge-Advocate-General, Washington:

COLONEL: I am directed to transmit the proceedings* in the trial of Dr. D. M. Wright, with the approval of Brigadier General Henry M. Naglee thereon.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEORGE H. JOHNSTON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, August 1, 1863.

His Excellency M. L. BONHAM,

Governor of South Carolina, Charleston, S. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter demanding the delivery to you of negroes captured in arms in the recent engagements in your State. I have no hesitation in complying, since the explicit terms of the joint resolution passed at the last session of Congress on the subject of retaliation require that "all negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in war, or be taken in arms against the Confederate States, or shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the Confederate States, shall, when captured in the Confederate States, be delivered to the authorities of the States in which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to the present or future laws of such State or States". Previous to the receipt of your letter, in answer to the inquiries of the general commanding the department embracing your State, I had informed him of the provisions of these resolutions, and by telegraph directed the delivery of the captured negroes to the authorities of South Carolina. Such delivery, I presume, has been made in pursuance of these instructions; but if not, explicit and more formal orders will be sent for their delivery to you.

With high esteem, most respectfully, yours,

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

OFFICE COMMISSIONER FOR EXCHANGE,

Fort Monroe, August 2, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to forward latest Southern papers. I left City Point, Va., at 12 o'clock to-day with 760 Federal prisoners of war, twenty women, and some twenty citizen prisoners (boys, ten to fourteen years of age), picked up at and about Winchester. I was

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* Not found, but see Holt to the President, August 19, p. 216.

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