WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, April 14, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel U. S. GRANT,

General-in-Chief U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: The accompanying report of Major-General Butler in respect to his regulations with Mr. Ould, touching the exchange of prisoners, is referred to you, together with the report therein of Major-General Hitchcock, commissioner of exchange. *

You will please give to Major-General Butler such instructions on the subject as in your judgment shall be proper.

Your obedient servant,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., April 14, 1864.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: The paper submitted by Major-General Butler on the subject of exchanges, bearing date 9th instant, presents distinct questions, a decision upon which must naturally be made in the following order, the first being that referring to colored troops in the service of the Government and who have fallen into the hands of the enemy.

It would appear that the enemy claims, through their agent, Mr. Ould, that colored troops in the service of the United States who have been slaves in any of the States claimed as belonging to the so-called Southern Confederacy when taken prisoners by the rebel army shall be returned to slavery by the rebel authorities, and this appears to be stated by Mr. Ould as a sine qua non.

This claim presents a question of such magnitude as will doubtless call for the consideration of the highest authority in order to a decision upon it, and is of such a nature that an opinion in relation to it by the undersigned might be altogether out of place, and he therefore refrains from expressing any.

If the claim above stated shall be formally denied by the Government it would seem to cut off all further intercourse between the belligerents on the subject of exchanges, and it would then be unnecessary to entertain or discuss the remaining points in General Butler's communication. On the bare possibility, however, that some other course may be decided upon than that of formally refusing to entertain Mr. Ould's demand, such as holding that demand in abeyance for future adjustment, I have to remark upon some of the other pretensions and claims set up by Mr. Ould, which, in my opinion, are entirely unfounded.

Mr. Ould is manifestly laboring under an error in all that he says with regard to the validity of the paroles given by the rebel troops received by General Grant at Vicksburg under terms of capitulation agreed upon between himself and Lieutenant-General Pemberton. The usages of war on the subject of a surrender upon terms of capitulation decide this point against Mr. Ould without leaving any question whatever for debate, and the whole of the prisoners released, according to the terms of the capitulation agreed upon between the two generals before the surrender of Vicksburg, became prisoners of war on parole, according to the laws of war.

In like manner, when Port Hudson was unconditionally surrendered to General Banks the whole military force of the enemy became unconditionally prisoners of war. They were reduced to "actual possession"

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* See Butler to Stanton, April 9, p. 29, and Hitchcock to Stanton, next post.

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