1863, the present estimate for clothing shall be paid from the prison savings fund? Amount of fund for September, $4,046. 60.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. H. POTEN,

Lieutenant Colonel, Invalid Corps, and Assistant Commandant of Prisoners.

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, October 27, 1863.

Brigadier General S. A. MEREDITH, Agent of Exchange:

SIR: In reply to your communication of the 17th instant I state that General Orders, Nos. 49 and 100, were not sent to me at the same time. I received General Orders, Numbers 49, long before Numbers 100 was delivered to me. Their respective dates will show that to be the fact.

My own personal recollection is that General Orders, Numbers 100, was never communicated in a letter. It is my habit faithfully to keep all letters written by the Federal agent of exchange.

A careful search of the records of my office does not disclose any letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow, communicating General Orders, Numbers 100. Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow met me at City Point on the 23rd of May, 1863, and he then and there delivered to me General Orders, Numbers 100, scanting that principles therein announced would in the future control the operations of the forces of the United States.

No written communication accompanied it. If any one was ever written to accompany it I never received it. You are in error, therefore, when you say that Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow on the 22nd of May, 1863, inclosed copies of General Orders, Numbers 49, and Numbers 100, announcing regulations and instructions for the government of the U. S. forces in the field in the matter of paroles; stating that these orders and the cartel were to govern your forces, and that when the cartel conflicted with the orders they were to be set aside. Independent of the facts of the case I am justified in saying that any such communication would have been very extraordinary. It would not only have admitted that the general orders were in violation of the cartel, but would have declared that the later general order, which on its face was announced to be the controlling law, should be set aside by the provisions contained in an earlier paper.

I again assert that the only notification I ever received as to your successive changes of purpose in the matter of paroles was from your own general orders, according to their respective dates, delivered tome without any further comment than I have already communicated to you.

You further say my "reference to the acts of Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow" does not sustain me. You further say-

The troops thus declared exchanged by Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow are or follows:

Fifty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Seventy-fifth Regiment Indiana Volunteers. . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Third Regiment Ohio Volunteers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Tennessee cavalry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

------

1,008

Paroled at Mount Sterling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

------

1,471

Permit me to say that I read this paragraph of your letter with very great surprise.