Your suggestions shall be carefully pursued, and may, I hope, have the results anticipated.

Very respectfully, yours,

JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., July 11, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel S. EASTMAN,

Commanding Depot Prisoners of War, Elmira, N. Y.:

COLONEL: By direction of the Commissary-General of Prisoners you will please inform all prisoners of war under your charge that for the present no more discharge will be granted, but those who do not wish to be sent South for exchange may make application to you to this effect, and you will please forward to this office semi-monthly or oftener rolls of all such applicants, giving the rank, regiment, and company when and where captured, and in the column of remarks such other particulars as on examination you may think necessary to a proper understanding of the case. Cases which you may deem of an extraordinary character may be presented separately. No prisoners of war will be sent for exchange who has or is about to make application to be released on taking the oath of allegiance until his case has been submitted to this office for final decision; nor will any prisoner of war be sent for exchange in opposition to his will until his case has been decided by the proper authority. Inclosed please find General Orders, Numbers 286, for 1863, in relation to the discharging of prisoners of war.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. T. HARTZ,

Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General.

RICHMOND, VA., July 11, 1864.

Colonel J. TAYLOR WOOD and General G. W. C. LEE:

(Care of General Whiting, Wilmington, N. C.)

Dispatch from Washington 7th, published in New York Herald of 8th, says:

Most of the prisoners at Point Lookout have been sent to Elmira, N. Y., and remainder are being transferred as rapidly as possible.

JEFF'N DAVIS.

NEAR ATLANTA, July 11, 1864.

General BRAXTON BRAGG, Richmond:

I strongly recommend the distribution of the U. S. prisoners now at Andersonville immediately. *

J. E. JOHNSTON.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, July 12, 1864.

The OFFICER Commanding U. S. FORCES AT DEEP BOTTOM, VA:

SIR: A communication from Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, of the date of July 8, 1864, to General R. E. Lee, requesting that Colonel James F. Jaquess

* For reply see Davis to Johnston, Series I, Vol. XXXVIII, Part V, p. 877.