class of prisoners confined here. I would respectfully request information whether political prisoners come under the same restrictions. There are very few prisoners of war confined here, not exceeding thirty or forty. All the others are citizens confined, many for defrauding recruits and several defaulting contractors and blockade-runners. My object in requesting this information is more particularly with regard to issue of coffee and sugar, to know whether I will discontinue the issue of said articles to all prisoners in confinement here. I should like an answer at your earliest convenience.

Very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant,

MARTIN BURKE,

Lieutenant-Colonel, U. S. Army, Commanding.

RICHMOND, VA., June 3, 1864.

General HOWELL COBB,

Colonel WILLIAM M. BROWNE,

Macon, Ga.:

General John H. Winder will be ordered to Andersonville as the officer best answering your requisition of those who are available. *

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF WESTERN LOUISIANA,
Near Alexandria, June 3, 1864.

Brigadier General W. R. BOGGS, Chief of Staff:

GENERAL: Major William M. Levy, inspector-general on my staff, has just returned from an interview with the commissioner representing Major-General Banks, and has agreed in my behalf with that commissioner upon the terms by which an exchange and delivery of prisoners will be had at once. By the arrangement Major-General Banks is to deliver to me at Red River Landing all the officers and enlisted men captured in the District of Western Louisiana and in the District of Texas, &c., now in his possession, and I am to deliver to him at the same time and place officers and enlisted men captured from the command of Major-General Banks in the District of Western Louisiana and Texas sufficient to cancel the number delivered to me. The delivery to be made by me will include the officers and men who have been longest in captivity. The number of prisoners in the hands of Major-General Banks is as follows: Officers-colonels, 1; lieutenant-colonel, 3; majors, 4; captains,25; lieutenants,49; 1 naval officer, rank not known. Total officers,83; enlisted men,962. In making the exchanges, the rate of equivalents as established in the cartel between Major-General Dix, U. S. Army, and Hill, C. S. Army, of July 22, 1862, will be observed.

I have the honor respectfully to request that the officers and men to a number sufficient to equalize the list above given, having regard to the length of time they have been prisoners, will be immediately sent down to this point, whence they will be carried by Major Levy to Red River Landing on boats and delivered to General Banks' commissioner.

As prisoners in New Orleans are closely confined in one of the cotton presses and the sickly season will soon commence in that city, I regard it of great importance to perfect the exchange with the least possible

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*See Special Orders, No. 129, Series I, Vol. XXXIX, Part II, p. 634.

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