[Indorsement.]

Nothing can be done of this kind without the consent of the rebel authorities, and all experience shows that no such consent can be obtained. Those authorities have systematically refused to relieve or suffer us to relieve our soldiers held as prisoners in the South. There is but one way by which relief can reach them, and that is through the success of the Federal armies.

E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Major-General of Volunteers.

PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE,

Richmond, August 11, 1864.

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War:

SIR: I respectfully ask to be instructed whether the provisions of General Orders, Numbers 25, Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, 1863, apply to slaves owned by citizens of the Confederate States or owned by citizens of Maryland or Delaware and enlisted in the armies of the United States. I also desire to be instructed whether negroes, slaves and free, who are captured in arms and who claim to be soldiers in the armies of the United States are to be treated as prisoners of war. Shall any difference be made between them and white prisoners, and shall they be separated from the whites in prison quarters or in hospital?

I have now confined sixteen negroes, who are sent as U. S. soldiers, who are sick or wounded.

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

IS. H. CARRINGTON,

Major and Provost-Marshal.

[Indorsement.]

AUGUST 21, 1864.

SECRETARY OF WAR:

The order referred to in this letter applies only to non-combatant slaves who may be captured. It directs that such slaves shall be sent to the camps of instruction and advertised, so that the masters of such slaves may secure them. After these orders the resolutions of Congress of 1st of May, 1863, were passed. These provide for the case described in this letter. But these resolutions have never been executed. The provost-marshal has a number of wounded negroes, captured at Petersburg, and a number that have not been wounded, and he desires information as to the treatment they are to receive.

Respectfully submitted.

J. A. CAMPBELL,

Assistant Secretary of War.

ANDERSONVILLE, August 11, 1864.

General S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General:

Two days of tremendous rain has damaged the stockade so much that I do not know if our whole force can save it. I beg you to send every facility to the new stockade near Millen, Ga., to have it finished at once. We are entirely full here. Can accommodate no more until I can increase the stockade, and at present all our force must endeavor to