[Second indorsement.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, March 9, 1864.

Respectfully referred to the commissioner for the exchange of prisoners for remark.

By order of the Secretary of War:

ED. R. S. CANBY,

Brigadier-General and Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Third indorsement.]

MARCH 12, 1864.

I concur in the opinion of Colonel Hoffman that Fort Delaware is a safer place for prisoners than Point Lookout if they are not required at Point Lookout for some special reason. With regard to a declaration, as referred to in General Butler's letter, I have to remark that if Mr. Ould has placed on duty the equivalents as stated he has done so without authority, without any agreement with us, but in accordance with his known disregard of all proper rules governing the exchange of prisoners, and I do not think the proper remedy of such irregularities is to be found in following his example.

E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Major-General of Volunteers, &c.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA,
OFFICE COMMISSIONER FOR EXCHANGE,

Fort Monroe, Va., March 4, 1864.

Colonel W. HOFFMAN,

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

SIR: In reply to your communication of February 17, informing me that the Secretary of War authorizes the exchange of Captain A. W. Metcalf, Fourteenth New York Cavalry, for Captain George V. Moody, a rebel officer at Camp Chase, Ohio, I have to inform you that Captain Metcalf has been exchanged for Captain Stanley, of North Carolina.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General and Commissioner for Exchange.

[MARCH 4, 164. -For Ross to Coates, and Coates' reply, in regard to the execution of certain Confederate prisoners, see Series I, Vol. XXXII, Part I, pp. 326, 327.]

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 4, 1864.

Major General S. P. HEITNZELMAN,

Commanding Northern Department, Columbus, Ohio:

GENERAL: Until recently I have been under the impression that the prisoners of war in the Ohio penitentiary were under military control except so far as their custody was concerned, and I presumed that visitors not permitted to see them except by permission from this office.

Will you please inform me under what rules they are held there, and if the warden or other State officials give admission to visitors to these prisoners as they do to state prisoners. They should be under the same military control as other prisoners of war, except in so far as this may be modified to suit the rules of the prison. Visitors should not be