RICHMOND, August 18, 1864.

Major IG. SZYMANSKI, Assistant Agent of Exchange:

SIR: Under the existing circumstances of the exchange question and until you hear to the contrary from me you can make exchanges of officer for officer and man for man in the trans-Mississippi region. Be careful, however, never to deliver more than you receive. Let all old transactions and computations remain for ad just men there. On the 27th of June last I declared exchanged all the Vicksburg men who had reported for duty at certain specified points in

Louisiana. I sent the notice to Captain Curell and requested him to notify you and General Smith immediately. You ought to have received that notice before the date of your last letter to me. You perceive that if you had gone on and delivered equivalents for such men they would have been exchanged

twice. I can find no better illustration of the absolute necessity of setting all questions of exchange here and by one head.

If you have may excess of prisoners over and above those held by the enemy retain them until equivalents in hand can be furnished to you. If this is not rigidly observed the Yankees will cheat all of us.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

CITY POINT, VA., August 19, 1864.

Honorable W. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.:

I am in receipt of copy of F. W. Morse's letter* of the 22nd of July to you, inclosing copy of statement of C. W. G. in relation to deserters from this army. There are constant desertions, though but few of them go over to the enemy. Unlike the enemy, however, we do not lose our veterans and men who enter the service through patriotic motives. The men who desert are those who have just arrived and who have never done any fighting and never intended to when they enlisted. There is a class known as "bounty jumpers" of substitute men, who enlist for the money, desert, and enlist again. After they have done this until they become fearful of punishment they join their regiments in the field and desert to the enemy.

Of this class of recruits we do not get one, forever eight bounties paid, to do good service. My provost - marshal - general is preparing a statement on this subject, which will show there -enforcements received from this class of recruits. Take the other side, the

desertions from the enemy to us. Not a day passes but men come into our lines, and men, too, who have been fighting for the South for more than three years. Not infrequently a commissioned officer comes with them. Only a few days ago I sent a regiment numbering 1,000 men for duty to General Pope's department, composed wholly of deserters from the rebel army and of prisoners who took the oath of allegiance and joined it. There is no doubt but many prisoners of was have taken the oath of allegiance and enlisted as substitutes to get the bounty and to effect the return to the South. These men are paraded abroad as deserters who want to join the South and fight their battles, and it is through hour leniency that the South expects to reap great advantages. We ought not to make a single exchange nor release a prisoner on any pretext whatever until the war closes.

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* Not found.

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