[Second indorsement.]

JULY 23, 1864.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL:

Refer to Brigadier-General Winder:

J. A. CAMPBELL,

Assistant Secretary of War.

GALVESTON, June 28, 1864.

Colonel A. C. JONES:

Let all the prisoners come down to-morrow except Baldwin, who will be remanded to the commanding officer at Anderson and put in jail there.

J. B. MAGRUDER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HOUSTON, June 23, 1864.

Major-General MAGRUDER:

Dispatch about prisoners received. All right.

A. C. JONES,

Colonel and Chief of Staff.

JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL'S OFFICE, June 24, 1864.

His Excellency the PRESIDENT:

In the case of George A. Williams, late captain, First U. S. Infantry, referred to this office, the following report is respectfully submitted:

This is an application made by him for the rescission of the order by which he was summarily dismissed.

From the papers examined it appears that Captain Williams was on duty as provost-marshal at Memphis, and as such in charge of the military prison and hospital in that city.

According to a report of inspection made to Colonel Hardie by Lieutenant Colonel John F. Marsh, Twenty-fourth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, under date of April 28, 1864, the prison which is used for the detention of citizens, prisoners of war on their way to the North, and U. S. soldiers awaiting trial, and which is located in a large block of stores, is represented as the filthiest place the inspector ever saw occupied by human beings. The report proceeds thus:

The whole management and government of the prisoners could not be worse. Discipline and order are unknown. Food sufficient, but badly served. In a dark, wet cellar I found twenty-eight prisoners chained to a wet floor, where they had been constantly confined, many of them for several months, one since November 16, 1863, and are not for a moment released, even to relieve the calls of nature. With a single exception these men have had no trial.

The hospital is described as having a shiftless appearance and the guard dirty and inefficient. It is also that there was no book or memorandum showing the disposition of the prison fund.

It would seem, though the fact is not directly stated, that upon this report the Secretary of War ordered the dismissal of Captain Williams. A telegraphic order was sent May 7 to Major-General Washburn, commanding District of West Tennessee, dismissing Williams for, as he says, excessive cruelty to prisoners and gross neglect for duty.

Upon received thereof he applied for a board to examine into the charges. A commission was accordingly appointed by Major-General