and has been submitted to the President. The letter contained a narrative of the capture of Captain Wharton and a portion of his men by Colonel Hurst, of the U. S. Army, and the murder of the captured party on the road from Purdy to Pocahontas. The President directs that you will inquire into the accuracy of the statement of Mr. Wisdom, and that when you are satisfied on that subject you will adopt such retaliatory measures as are authorized by the usages of war, without awaiting specific instruction or making any reference to this Department. And this course will be adopted not only in this case, but whenever such instances of enormity and wickedness in violation of the laws of war shall come to your knowledge. The subject is placed under your control as a military commander, and you are expected to exercise a wise discretion in reference to it. The enemy have, in their Military Order, Numbers 100, declaring the laws and usages of war, allowed to their subordinate commanders every latitude for cruelty and injustice that they can desire, and we hear from every quarter that they are not slow in using and abusing the authority given. The repress this abuse a corresponding power must sometimes be exerted by our own officers.

Very respectfully,

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 193.
Richmond, August 14, 1863.

* * * * * *

XXII. H. A. M. Henderson is appointed assistant commissioner with the pay and allowances of a captain in the Adjutant-General's Department, to carry out the cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and will report to Colonel Robert Ould, agent, &c., for duty at Demopolis, Ala.

By command of the Secretary of War:

JNO WITHERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT TRANS-MISSISSIPPI,

Shreveport, La., August 14, 1863.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond:

GENERAL: I have the honor to call the attention of the War Department to an announcement in the New Orleans Era of the 6th instant "that the soldiers belonging to the Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth Connecticut Volunteers, who were recently captured and paroled at Brashear City, have been ordered to report for duty, as their paroles are signed by an aide-de-camp, C. S. Army, whose authority is not recognized by our Government. " This announcement derives peculiar significance from its being made in the official abolition paper of New Orleans. It is an act of bad faith on the part of our enemies, in keeping with their treacherous policy, and demands the prompt action of the Government. The prisoners who were paroled at Vicksburg, and who yielded to the desire to visit their homes in this department (as they uniformly state), were offered every facility by the enemy to pass through their lines and cross the Mississippi River. By this means hundreds of these paroled men, who, by the stipulation of the surrender of the garrison, were to be sent to a paroled camp east of the