The navy officers are to be held in the same way as army officers. The Yankees have in their prisons Confederate officers who were captured before January, 1863, and we can therefore hear the growls of their navy officers without any self-reproach. I have offered the United States Government to exchange all navy officers on both sides, with a further stipulation that the deficiency on either side should be made up from the army. To this that Government has not yet assented. I doubt if it will. The cartel (which is at the end of the pamphlet correspondence) stipulates what shall be the assimilated rank of army and navy officers. Please refer to it for your guide.

We cannot demand that the Yankees shall deliver their trans-Mississippi captures on your side of their river. It is entirely in their discretion whether they do so or not. I however will urge upon them the propriety of so doing and hope to be successful. As far as our captures are concerned they will be delivered to the Federals at some point mutually to be agreed upon west of the river. What place will be most convenient for us? In making the designation some regard must be had to the place of confinement. Where that is permanent I suppose it would be the controlling consideration. Let me have your views on this matter. I will arrange for any place General Smith may prefer. You had better name two, so that if one is not acceptable to the Yankees the other may be.

I have no hope for a general delivery of our people until we have a majority of prisoners. The announcement of the resumption of exchanges was premature, to say the least of it. The Federals have no objection to special exchanges, or even partial ones, but they utterly refuse to comply with that portion of the cartel which provides for the delivery of the excess upon parole. If we ever get in the ascendant I will give them successive doses of their own physic.

You perceive that for the sake of your peculiar position we abate some portion of our demands against the Yankees, in allowing you in extreme cases to deliver any number of prisoners upon receiving their equivalents. This, even, is only an extensive special exchange, and for that reason is obnoxious to many objections. We do not pursue that course here. We insist on the cartel.

I wish you to send on to me from time to time the number of prisoners west of the Mississippi and where they are confined. I do not want you to send on the rolls. Give me merely the number of officers, their rank, and the number of sergeants, corporals, and privates. When you make deliveries send the rolls in duplicate.

At this present moment I cannot declare exchanged the men of the Vicksburg capture who have reported for duty east or west of the Mississippi. So soon as I can get sufficient material to my credit I will declare the exchange. When that will occur you can guess as well as I can. Sure it is, however, we cannot, in justice to the brave men now in captivity, give prisoners actually in custody for men who are on parole. Our brave boys at Johnson's Island and other Federal "pens" would have the right complain if we were to do so. There is nothing unfair in asking the West to repay what in can the debt which it owes to the East. I have given many an Eastern capture to release Western men. If all the Federal prisoners now west of the Mississippi were used for the sole purpose of relieving Eastern soldiers from captivity, it would not more than repay the debt. I do not, however, propose to do that. I simply wish all prisoners, wherever captured, to be used for the common benefit of all who are in prison, without any discrimination or partiality.