Massachusetts Volunteers, captured near New Bern, N. C., February 1, 1864; Samuel Slavens, Company E, Thirty-third Ohio Regiment; Samnel Shaw, Company I, One hundred and twenty-fourth Ohio Volunteers; R. W. Hurlburt, Arthur Taylor Kennedy, First Maryland Regiment; H. W. Squires, Company E, One hundred and forty-first New York Volunteers; Henry Clay Tucker, John P. Webb, Company C, One hundredth Ohio Volunteers; Newton Gilbert, Company K, One hundred and eleventh New York Volunteers; John L. Nelson, Company D, First Kentucky Cavalry; Charles H. Boswell, Company C, Thirty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers; Frank Olive, Company B, First Ohio Regiment; Preston A. Champney, U. S. Signal Corps; John Whipple, Jr., Company C, Eleventh New Hampshire Volunteers; Captain Robert Pollock, Company D, Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry; G. W. Johnson, Company H, Twenty-first Michigan Infantry.

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

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General and Commissioner for Exchange.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, May 5, 1864.

His Excellency the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

SIR: Upon the question propounded to my consideration by you I have the honor to submit the following opinion:

First. That of the rebel officers now held as prisoners by the United States there should be selected by lot a number equal to the number of persons ascertained to have been massacred at Fort Pillow, who shall immediately be placed in close confinement as hostage to await such further action as may be determined.

Second. That Generals Forrest and Chalmers and all officers and men known, or who may hereafter be ascertained, to have been concerned in the massacre at Fort Pillow be excluded by the President's special order from the benefit of his amnesty, and also that they, by his order, be exempted from all privilege of exchange or other rights as prisoners of war, and shall, if they fall into our hands, be subjected to trial and such punishment as may be awarded for their barbarous and inhuman violation of the laws of war toward the officers and soldiers of the United States and Fort Pillow.

Third. That the rebel authorities at Richmond be notified that the prisoners so selected are held as hostages for the delivery up of Generals Forrest and Chalmers and those concerned in the massacre at Fort Pillow, or to answer in their stead, and in case of their nondelivery within a reasonable time, to be specified in the notice, such measures will be taken in reference to the hostages, by way of retributory justice for the massacre of Fort Pillow, as are justified by the laws of civilized warfare.

Fourth. That after the lapse of a reasonable time for the delivery up of Chalmers, Forrest, and those concerned in the massacre the President proceed to take against the hostages above selected such measures as may, under the state of things then existing, be essential for the protection of Union soldiers from such savage barbarities as were practiced at to compel the rebels to observe the laws of civilized warfare.

Fifth. That the practice of releasing without exchange of equivalent rebel prisoners taken in battle be discontinued, and no such immunity be extended to rebels while our prisoners are undergoing ferocious barbarity or the more horrible death of starvation.

8 R-SERIES II, VOL VII.