and industry, and no one can examine the records and character of service relating to the department of prisoners without being convinced of the absolute necessity for a commissary-general of prisoners. Facts have come to my knowledge respecting these prisons and the prison system which satisfy my mind fully that no effective system or organization can be secured without such an officer.

In consideration of the close official relations existing between the officer directly charged with care of the prisoners and the commissioner for exchange, I should think a bureau for the regulation of all matters relating to prisoners would prove most advantageous either under charge of the commissary-general of prisoners or the commissioner for their exchange, as the same records are necessary to both for the advised performance of their duties, it being equally important to both to know the number, condition, and location of all prisoners. The chief of this bureau could by orders and regulations the disposition of prisoners taken throughout the Confederacy, and require such returns from armies, detachments, or small parties capturing prisoners as would inform his department of every capture, and through returns from the different prisons keep up his records so as to show their condition weekly. As it is, with divided responsibilities it is as difficult for the one to procure the information necessary to well-informed correspondence as it is for the other to arrange for the safe-keeping and subsistence of the prisoners, and the makeshift for the present appears to have characterized too much the disposition heretofore made of our prisoners. A better system and organization to be secured under the plan proposed would, I think, result in greater economy and the better security of the prisoners, and while securing to the bureau information from all commands respecting their capture, would enable the authorities to arrange deliberately, and in accordance with actual wants, the necessary accommodations.

I am, general, your obedient servant,

R. H. CHILTON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[First indorsement.]

MAY 28, 1864.

General BRAGG:

Will you look at this paper at your convenience, and perhaps we may devise a plan by which we may insure a more perfect record of the prisoners of the enemy in our hands than has heretofore been kept. I have been told that we have either at Danville or some other depot of prisoners east of the Mississippi 200 more prisoners of the enemy than our returns exhibit.

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

[Second indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS, May 29, 1864.

I fully concur in the opinion that our present system is very defective, and from my experience in the field I know we have lost many prisoners by it. A general officer of ability might be advantageously employed at the head of the bureau suggested, and commanders in the field of all grades should be required to make to him full and detailed reports of captures. My mind has long been satisfied, too, that a system of espionage exists through the exchange of prisoners by which the enemy