requesting him to order General M. Jeff. Thompson, one of the rebel officers recently arrived at Point Lookout from Johnson's Island, to Fort Delaware, but seeing a notice in the newspapers to-day that General Butler has gone to New York, and receiving no reply to my telegram, I am led to believe that he did not receive the order, and I have respectfully to request you will send General Thompson, under a suitable guard, to Fort Delaware, to be delivered to General Schoepf, commanding that post. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel third Infantry and Commissary-General of Prisoners.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, [C. S.,] February 13, 1864.

Laid on the table and ordered to be printed.

Report of the committee on Quartermaster's and commissary Departments.

The Committee on Quartermaster's and Commissary Departments, to whom was referred the following resolution, adopted by the House of Representatives on the 11th December last, viz-

Resolved, That the Committee on quartermaster's and commissary Departments inquire into the truth or falsehood of the allegation that the Yankee prisoners in our hands have not been adequately supplied with food, and report to this House as soon as practicable, to the end that the character of our Government may be effectually vindicated in the premises, and censure, if any be due, be visited upon those who deserve it, and also why our own soldiers have not been better provided with food.

Resolved further, That the committee also inquire and report whether the same rations have been furnished prisoners captured from the enemy that have been furnished our one soldiers-beg leave respectfully to report:

By the regulations of the War Department if is made the duty of the Quartermaster-General to subsist prisoners of war. the prisoners were subsisted from purchases of provisions made by Captain J. Warner, acting assistant quartermaster on the staff of Brigadier-General winder, commandant of the Department of Henrice, and assigned to that special duty.

The regulation requiring the quartermaster's Department to subsist prisoners of war is still in force, but by an arrangement made between the Quartermaster-General and the Commissary-General, with the approval of the Secretary of War, it was agreed and understood that the purchases by the quartermaster's Department of the subsistence of prisoners of war should thereafter be made from the Subsistence Department. This arrangement was entered into in the month of August, 1863.

I appears from the evidence before your committee that the inducement to this arrangement that the purchases made by Captain Warner for the subsistence of the prisoners of war prior to the date above mentioned were not confined to schedule prices under his instructions from the Quartermaster-General, whilst in no instance were the purchases made on account of the Subsistence Department, under orders from the Commissary-General, allowed to exceed the prices numerated in the schedule.

It will thus be perceived that to the extent of purchases of subsistence necessary for the prisoners the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments were brought into competition in the market, with every