to this course by the party granting the parole, because the validity of the parole depends on a strict compliance with the provisions of the cartel, and when any other course is followed than that pointed out by that instrument any claim based upon it must fail. Paragraph 130 of Order 100, which prescribes the duties which a paroled soldier may perform, is also to some extent set aside by the cartel, which restricts these duties to a much more limited field than the order. Paragraph 131, which Mr. Ould makes so much of, is also made inoperative by the cartel, because it could only apply to paroles not given at the points designated for delivery, but all such paroles are by the cartel made invalid, and the paroling party could, therefore, have no pretext for claiming their recognition. If such a claim could be admitted, the effect at Gettysburg would have been to give General Lee the privilege of placing his prisoners in our hands to be delivered to him at our own charge at City Point. Mr. Ould cannot have the assurance to insist on anything so absurd as this.

General Order 207 was intended simply to announce to the Army that the irregular practice of paroling small squads of men and individuals without rolls or other reliable evidence of any kind, which had very generally prevailed, must be discontinued, and that thereafter the cartel should be rigidly adhered to. This announcement had been previously made to the Confederate authorities through Mr. Ould.

There have been no 'successive changes of purpose in the matter of paroles," as Mr. Ould asserts, nor changes of any kind, except so far as to return to a strict observance of the cartel, and this is a change the propriety of which Mr. Ould is not at liberty to question.

The figures which I give you in my letter of the 13th instant were not given as embracing all declared exchanged in General Orders, Numbers 167, of June 8, but only those which Colonel Ludlow used to make up the balance due him after arranging that Mr. Ould. It was the declaration which Colonel Ludlow made to cover this balance that Mr. Ould cites as the precedent which authorized him to announce so unexpectedly his declaration of September 12. The fallacy of his assumption is what we want to show; not so much an error in his computation. On examining the record I find that the Eightieth Illinois, 311 men - not 400 as Mr. Ould says - was accidentally omitted from my letter, and by a clerical error Seventy-third Indiana was written Seventy-fifth Indiana. Paragraphs 5 and 6 of General Order 167 cover the troops referred to, and other paragraphs cover the captures mentioned by Mr. Ould. Any discrepancies in numbers declared exchanged at that time on either side is of little consequence, as up to the date of that order it is assumed that the exchange account was satisfactorily balanced.

If Mr. Ould has proof, as he asserts, that the Confederate prisoners [were] delivered at City Point between the 6th and the 23rd of May, of which you have no record, it is due to himself and to you that he should produce it. I do not doubt that he has it, but that is no reason why he should withhold it.

He again asserts that he has in his possession more valid paroles of officers and men than would furnish equivalents for all he has declared exchanged up to the date of his letter. You have already invited him to produce these paroles, and without his doing so his assertions cannot be credited. I have seen the statement of Federal troops captured and paroled in the West presented by him, which you forwarded to General Hitchcock. This simply gives numbers captured at different times by different commanders, and is no more reliable nor any better