of discipline and good order in the camp in every branch of the service will be attended with immediate and complete success.

The Farmer boilers are in use in several camps under my charge and are found to be the most convenient mode of cooking, and if they have failed to Camp Douglas it is because those who used them did not want to succeed. A sixty-gallon boiler, which will cost $25 to $35, will cook for 120 men, with a very small supply of wood, and there can be no plan so cheap. By this mode the cooking is all done alike, at the same time, and by two or three men, while by your plan the very thing I wished to avoid is encouraged, viz, the use of camp kettles, pots, frying-pans, &c., and the presence at the range of a crowd of men cooking for themselves.

The contractors, I know, are very willing to furnish ovens to bake corn bread in because it adds very largely to their profits, but I do not wish this practice to be continued. When prisoners of war were at Camp Douglas a year ago I failed to have my orders in relation to the mode of cooking and saving rations obeyed, and inconsequence, instead of having a fund of $10,000 to $20,000, there was $1,000 collected, and now I must insist that my instructions shall be strictly carried out. You will make your issues of rations according to the scale I have furnished you, and the balance will make up the prisoners' fund. With this you will furnish Farmer's boilers, putting a few in use at a time. The sixty-gallon size I think has been found to be most convenient, but you may find it advantageous to have some of smaller size. Take away all other cooking utensils, and then there will be no failure to cook with the boilers. For your bread, make a contract with a baker in Chicago to take twenty ounces of flour and return you eighteen ounces of bread, by which you will save two ounces on each ration. Put the ovens in order as soon as you can, employ a good baker at $75 to $100 a month, and detail three or four assistants from your command, and some prisoners, allowing them extra pay, and you will make a saving of $200 or $300 a month. Once or twice a week you can permit the baker to furnish corn bread in place of wheat bread, and when your ovens are in repair you can bake it yourself. The contractors must not be consulted on this subject, nor must they be permitted to offer any advice. I depend on you, colonel, to put my plans into successful operation. If there is any obstacle in the way, which I do not anticipate, report to me at once.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry and Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., November 9, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel W. S. PIERSON,

Commanding Depot Prisoners of War, Sandusky, Ohio:

COLONEL: Your letter of the 31st ultimo, with the inclosed letter of Major Scovill, dated the 1st instant, was received on the 6th. The last three or four lines of your letter express avery commendable determination. As to what is contained in the rest of the letter, there is very little that meets my views. The Navy Department does not anticipate that there will be any necessity for the Michigan to leave her moorings near the island during the winter, and if there be none, all your arguments based on her removal do not apply to the case. You apparently give your own impression of what the steamer can do without having consulted her commander as to what can be done. It occurs