CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, November 16, 1863.

ISAAC W. MONFORT, Esq.,

Military Agent of Indiana, Fort Monroe:

SIR: Your communication* of the 12th instant has been received. Any provisions which you may choose to send to City Point for the benefit of Indiana prisoners will be faithfully distributed to them under such regulations as shall be prescribed by our prison authorities. Of course those regulations will have but the one aim of benefiting your people.

The provisions can be sent to my care or that of Brigadier-General Winder.

There will, of course, be some difficulty in finding your people. Some of them may be at one place and some at another. We have now begun distributing Federal prisoners over our country, owing to the recent refusal of the Federal authorities to make exchanges. This fact of itself would be a good reason for not directing the stores to any one of your officers. Every effort will be made to find out your people and due reports made to you from time to time.

Respectfully, &c.,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

CHARLESTON, S. C., November 16, 1863.

General BEAUREGARD:

SIR: We, the colored prisoners belonging to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, do beg of you to send this communication to General Gillmore, as we are very much in need of the things that they can furnish us with, and you will confer a very great favor upon us by so doing.

[Inclosure.]

CHARLESTON, S. C., November 16, 1863.

General GILLMORE:

SIR: We, the undersigned, now prisoners in the Confederate Government, captured on James and Morris Islands July 16 and 18, ascertain by the provost-marshal of this city that we can receive things from you. If you will be so kind as to send us a few things+ that we need it will do us a great favor at the time being, and we shall feel exceedingly thankful.

WALTER A. JEFFERS.

ENOS SMITH.

HENRY KIRK.

[And thirty others.]

[NOVEMBER 16, 1863. -For Bragg's General Orders, Numbers 208, announcing to his army "that the enemy does not intend to carry out in good faith the cartel * * * for the exchange of prisoners," and commenting thereon, see Series I, Vol. XXXI, Part III, p. 701.]

FORT MONROE, November 17, 1863.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

Flag-of-truce boat just in. Richmond papers of 17th. Union prisoners are being sent away from Richmond; 4,000 to Danville, others to

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*Not found.

+List of articles omitted.

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