OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL OF PRISONERS,

ROCK ISLAND BARRACKS,

Rock Island, Ill., July 18, 1864.

Colonel A. J. JOHNSON,

Fourth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, Commanding Post:

COLONEL: I have the honor to report the police condition of prison and prison hospital for the week ending to day as good. The streets of prison inclosure are clean and in good condition. The kitchens in both departments are in excellent order. The general appearance of the prisoners is clean and tidy. The bedding of the prisoners being well aired each day, the sanitary condition of both departments is good.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. P. CARAHER,

Lieutenant Colonel Fourth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps,

Provost-Marshal of Prisoners.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS ROCK ISLAND BARRACKS,
Rock Island, Ill., July 20, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded to Colonel William Hoffman, U. S. Army, Commissary-General of Prisoners, with the remark that after a careful inspection I fully concur with the within report.

A. J. JOHNSON,

Colonel Fourth Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, Commanding Post.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington, July 18, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: The Department understands that some of the officers and crew of the steamer Pevensey, which was run ashore and destroyed near Beaufort, N. C., while endeavoring to run the blockade, have been sent to Point Lookout for imprisonment. They claim to be British subjects, and if they are really such their transferred to Point Lookout was made under a misconstruction of the Department's orders respecting the disposing of blockade-runners. Bona fide neutral subjects captured in neutral vessels violation the blockade are not subject to treatment as prisoners of war. I will thank you, therefore, to give directions for the immediate release of those of the officers and crew of the Pevensey as well as of any other neutral blockade-running vessels that have been sent to Point Lookout for imprisonment, and are foreign subjects.

Very respectfully, &c.,

GIDEON WELLES,

Secretary of the Navy.

ANDERSONVILLE, July 18, 1864.

General S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General:

The prison at Macon is not secure and will take great expense and labor to make it so. It is within a few hundred yards of three important railroad depots and very large workshops, which escaped prisoners might and probably would burn. It is in a large town, which renders an inefficient guard more inefficient. It is in an unhealthy locality, to which our troops ought not to be exposed.

This is an answer to your telegram of the 15th instant.

JNO H. WINDER,

Brigadier-General.