ATLANTA, GA., September 9, 1864.

Major-General HALLECK, Chief of Staff: *

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Last evening Hood sent in a flag of truce asking to exchange prisoners. I have about 2,000 on hand, and will exchange if he will make a fair deal. I have sent out my inspector-general to confer and agree, and to make arrangements for the exodus of citizens. I am not willing to have Atlanta encumbered by the families of our enemies. I want it a pure Gibraltar, and will have it so by the 1st of October.

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W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Atlanta, Ga., September 9, 1864.

General J. B. HOOD, Commanding Confederate Army:

GENERAL: As I answered yesterday, I consent to an actual exchange of prisoners, man for man, and equal for equal, differences or balances to be made up according to the cartel of 1862. I have appointed one of my inspectors-general, Lieutenant Colonel W. Warner, to carry out this exchange and will empower him to call for the prisoners and all such guards as he may need to effect the actual transfers. We have here 28 officers and 782 enlisted men, and en route for Chattanooga 93 officers and 907 men, making 1,810 on hand that I will exchange for a like number of my own men, captured by you in this campaign, who belong to regiments with me and who can resume their places at once, as I take it for granted you will do the same by yours. In other words, for these men I am not willing to take equivalents belonging to other armies than my won, or who belong to other regiments whose times are out and who have been discharged. By your laws all men eligible for service are ipso facto soldiers, and a very good one it is, and if needed for civil duty they are simply detailed soldiers. We found in Atlanta about a thousand of these fellows and I am satisfied they are fit subjects for exchange, and if you will release an equal number of our poor fellows at Anderson I will gather these together and send them as prisoner. They seem to have been detailed for railroad and shop duty, and I do not ask for them an equal number of my trained soldiers, but will take men belonging to any part of the U. S. Army subject to your control. We hold a good many of your men, styled "deserters," who were really stragglers and would be a good offset to such our stragglers and foragers as your cavalry pickets up of our men, but I am constrained to give these men, though sorely against the grain, the benefit of their character, pretended or real.

As soon as Colonel Warner agrees upon a few points with the officer you name I will send the prisoners to the place appointed and recall those not beyond Chattanooga, and you may count on about 2,000 in the aggregate and get ready to give ma a like number. I am willing to appoint Rough and Ready or Jonesborough as the place of exchange as also for the place of delivery of the citizens, male and female, of Atlanta who elect to go South.

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* For portions here omitted not relating to prisoners of war, see Series I, Vol. XXXVIII, Part V, p. 839.

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