OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., March 18, 1864.

Major General S. P. HEINTZELMAN,

Commanding Northern Department, Columbus, Ohio:

GENERAL: By direction of the Secretary of War you will please give the necessary orders for the transfer of prisoners of war now in the Ohio penitentiary to Fort Delaware. Please order an ample guard and have every precaution taken that none escape. Instruct the commander of the guard to permit the prisoners to have no communication with any person by the way, and notify the commanders at Pittsburg, Harrisonburg, and Philadelphia of their coming, so that guards may be present to secure their safe transfer from one train to another. A steamer will be prepared at Philadelphia to receive them, but the guard will continue with them to Fort Delaware, and all should be transported with cooked rations for their whole route. They should be transported in passenger cars, well supplied with water and lights, and the time of reaching Philadelphia before 6 p. m. should be fixed to be provided for in the contract. Send with them duplicate rolls, one copy to be retained by the officer in charge, and furnish a copy to this office. The officer in charge will take receipts for all delivered, and will give the names, with rank, &c., of all not delivered, stating what became of them. His report should be made through you immediately on his return. If the prisoners have money in the hands of any officer please have it sent with them to be delivered to the commander at Fort Delaware. The rolls required are the ordinary rolls, not the parole-rolls. The rebel officers now at Camp Chase have also been ordered to Fort Delaware, and it will perhaps be convenient to send both parties at the same time. If you should judge this to be the most advisable course, will you please issue the necessary orders? I send instructions by to-day's mail to Colonel Richardson for the movement of the officers under his immediate charge.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry and Commissary-General of Prisoners.

P. S. -Please notify me by telegraph of the time when they will leave.

W. HOFFMAN.

(Similar instructions to commanding officer Camp Chase, Ohio.)

HOUSTON, March 18, 1864.

Brigadier General W. R. BOGGS:

The Cincinnati Commercial of February 26 copies from Richmond papers of 20th the act passed by Congress authorizing the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by the President, Secretary of War, and commander of Trans-Mississippi Department. It covers the case of Baldwin, Peebles, Zinke, Hillbrand, and Zeeliger, who have sued out a writ before the supreme court at Austin.

Could you suspend the writ in this case?

J. B. MAGRUDER,

Major-General, Commanding.