WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, November 28, 1863.

His Excellency DAVIS TOD,

Governor of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio:

Please ascertain whether Morgan has been permitted to see or correspond with any person; and if so, by whose authority.

P. H. WATSON,

Acting Secretary of War.

COLUMBUS, November 28, 1863-12. 30 p. m.

Colonel WILLIAM HOFFMAN:

General John Morgan and six other rebel officers escaped from the penitentiary last night by cutting through the stone pavement of their cells and burrowing under the sewer walls immediately below their cells. We have taken every possible means for their arrest.

WM. WALLACE,

Colonel Fifteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

CHATTANOOGA, TENN., November 28, 1863-10. 10 p. m.

Major General H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief:

There are many prisoners here. To send them North will be expensive in transportation, warm clothing, and food and shelter. Does the present state of the contest permit works at Chattanooga and Bridgeport, where they can be very useful in building bridges, repairing railroads which they have destroyed, and in handling stores, forage, and subsistence and transferring them to steamers?

M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, November 28, 1863.

Major General W. B. FRANKLIN, New Iberia:

GENERAL: Your dispatch concerning General Taylor's proposition to exchange prisoners received. If General Taylor means that he will exchanged all the prisoners in his hands, without making any distinction as to the corps to which they belong, you ought to assent to the proposition and fix upon a convenient point of delivery.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHAS. P. STONE,

Brigadier-General and Chief of Staff.

VERMILIONVILLE, LA., November 28, 1863.

Commanding OFFICER FEDERAL FORCES ON THE TECHE:

SIR: I am instructed by Major-General Taylor, commanding, to open communication at once with you on the 'subject of the exchange of prisoners," stating that we have "on hand several hundred prisoners, all of whom are without blankets and many without shoes and indifferently supplied with clothing, and whose sufferings this winter it will be impossible for us to alleviate. You will use every exertion consistent with the dignity of your position to perfect some arrangement, and in the event of success will exchanged immediately, man for man," &c.