CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, Va., December 3, 1863.

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

SIR: On the 6th of this month I shall declare exchanged the officers and men named in the accompanying lists. They were all captured and paroled at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. I have valid paroles in my possession sufficient to counterbalance this and the other exchange I have declared. When I make use of that phrase I wish to be understood as meaning valid paroles according to your own general orders. If in the computation of them it should prove otherwise I am ready to make up the deficiency by actual deliveries of prisoners now in our hands, provided in the same contingency hereafter you will agree to do the same.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, Va., December 3, 1863.

Brigadier-General MEREDITH, Agent of Exchange:

SIR: I have been informed that the Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout are confined in company with negroes and that the smallpox is raging fatally among them. Will you please make inquiries and ascertain if this be so?

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

HEADQUARTERS COMMANDER OF THE POST,
Camp Douglas, Chicago, Ill., December 3, 1863.

Colonel WILLIAM HOFFMAN,

Commissary-General of Prisoners, Washington, D. C.:

COLONEL: It is my disagreeable duty to report to you the circumstances of a serious break of the Morgan prisoners in this camp. The prisoners in Barrack Numbers 3, of the southeast or "White Oak" square, succeeded in making a tunnel from the barracks to the outside of the fence. They dug a small, round hole just under the frozen cruets of the ground, the dirt being secreted under the floors of the barracks and cook-houses, leading outside the fence. During the day this hole was covered with a board, over which was kept about six inches of dirt. This same barrack was searched every week, but the device was too perfect, and the officers failed to detect it. The barracks at this point are very near the fence, the distance being forty-three feet from center of barracks and seventeen and nine-twelfths feet from cook-houses. The night was so dark and foggy the guards were unable to see a distance of over ten feet. There were patrols on both sides of fence and guards on the top. From the best information I can get the prisoners commenced making their escape about 8 p. m., and this continued at intervals until 9,30 o'clock, when the outside patrols discovered them and the alarm was given. As near as I can ascertain now not far from 100 prisoners passed out. If there had been less hurry among them many more could have escaped. As soon as the alarm was given