contained, with the indorsement, and to assure you that unless I have, assurances, under the hand of the party therein named, that the treatment set forth is either misrepresented or has ceased on the part of those you represent I shall immediately subject to as nearly similar treatment as possible a like number of Confederate officers of equal rank, provided always I can find a place of confinement which shall come up to the description of General Dow. The attention of Mr. Commissioner Ould is further respectfully called to the case of the Kentucky officer mentioned in General Dow's letter.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

CAHANA, [May] 3, 1864.

Captain DOUGLAS WEST:

All Federal prisoners, except the sick, have been sent to Andersonville, Ga., including all Fort Pillow prisoners sent here.

HENRY C. DAVIS,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, May 4, 1864.

Honorable B. F. WADE,

Chairman of Joint Committee on Conduct of the War:

SIR: I have the honor to submit to you a report to this Department by Colonel Hoffman, Commissary-General of Prisoners, in regard to the condition of Union soldiers who have, until within a few days, been prisoners of war at Richmond, and would respectfully request that your committee immediately proceed to Annapolis to take testimony there and examine with their own eyes the condition of those who have been returned from rebel captivity. The enormity of the crime committed by the rebels toward our prisoners for the last several months is not known or realized by our people, and cannot but fill with horror the civilized world when the facts are fully revealed. There appears to have been a deliberate system of savage and barbarous treatment and starvation, the result of which will be that few, if any, of the prisoners that have been in their hands during the past winter will ever again be in a condition to render any service or even to enjoy life. *

Your obedient servant,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

[Inclosure.]

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., May 3, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to report that, pursuant to your instructions of the 2nd instant, I proceeded yesterday morning to Annapolis, with a view to see that the paroled prisoners about to arrive there from Richmond were properly received and cared for.

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* For report of the Joint Select Committee on the Conduct of the War, relating to this subject, see Report Numbers 67, House of Representatives, Thirty-eighth Congress, first session.

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