right to you to select what Federal officers and men shall be relieved from their parole whenever I discharge our officers and men from their parole. I claim the same right when you declare an exchange of your paroled men. If I had sent to lists of such of your officers and men as were relieved from their parole by my declaration of exchange, I would in effect have violated that provision of the cartel which gives the right to "each party to relieve from parole such of their own officers and men as the party may choose. " It was entirely unnecessary for me to give you the number of men whom my notice declared exchanged. They were all Vicksburg captures or City Point deliveries. You had the rolls of both. You had in your possession as much information as I could communicate, even if I had held the Vicksburg rolls, which I did not. I have already proved to you by the record that the former Federal agent when he declared exchanges gave neither lists nor the number of men. There is, however, a more recent case. You yourself have just declared a sweeping exchange. You have not furnished me with any lists or designation of corps, division, brigade, regiment, or company, notwithstanding the clamor you have raised abut my omission in those particulars. You objection as to want of time for the preparation of your announcement is a small one at best. The cartel does not make it incumbent upon me to give you time. Your predecessor id not give it to me. The correspondence, however, between us before the 12th of September was of such a nature as must have prevented a surprise.

Fourth. I did not make any such agreement with your predecessor, Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow, as you state, nor did I ever make any agreement with any one by which I renounced the right to claim the paroles given at Gettysburg. The first official letter which I ever addressed to you was in relation to this very subject. It bears date August 1, 1863, and is as follows: *

The General Order Numbers 100 issued at Washington, which Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow communicated to me on the 23rd of May, 1863, in its 131st paragraph provides that "if the Government does not approve of the parole the paroled officer must return into captivity, and should the enemy refuse to receive him he is free of his parole. " In no communication, in no interview with either Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow or yourself, where the subject was under consideration, did I ever fail to demand that if your Government rejected the paroles the parties should return into captivity. I had the warrant of your own general order for that demand, but pleaded it in vain. So far from carrying out its own general order your Government on the 30th of June last, while the order was in force and before the publication of General Orders, Numbers 207, convened a court of inquiry, and required the court to give its opinion on the following point, to wit: Whether Major Duane and Captain Michler, captured and paroled on the 28th of June, 1863, should be placed on duty without exchange, or be required to return to the enemy as prisoners of war. The general order required the latter, the court found that the Government was free to place those officers on duty without exchange. The reason given by the court was not that the Federal agent and myself had agreed to regard such paroles as invalid, but that I had been notified they would not be recognized. It is true that I was informed that certain paroles would not be considered as valid, but I was also notified at the same time, by the same hand and through the same instrument, that the "paroled officer" must return into captivity if his parole was not approved. In other

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*See p. 167, last communication.

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