GENERAL ORDERS
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 261.
Washington, September 22, 1864.

The following-named officers and enlisted men of the U. S. Army have been duly exchanged as prisoners of war, under the orders of Major General J. G. Foster, commanding Department of the South:

At Charleston Harbor, S. C., September 3, 1864.

First Lieutenant Frank H. Lay, One hundred and seventeenth New York Volunteers; Sergt. John Burkhardt, Fourth Michigan Cavalry.

At Port Royal Ferry, S. C., August 16, 1864.

Privates Edward Bates, Company K, Forty-second New York Volunteers; Abraham Barns, Company K, Thirty-sixth Indiana Volunteers; W. H. Bynon, Company A, Ninety-eighth Ohio Volunteers; J. G. Crosier, Company C, Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteers; H. C. Higginson, Company K, Nineteenth Illinois Volunteers; Jacob Harbauer, Company A, Fourteenth Ohio Volunteers; Prescott Tracy, Company G. Eighty-second New York Volunteers; Sylvester Noirot, Company B, Fifth New Jersey Infantry.

The officers and enlisted men whose exchange is announced above will proceed to join their respective regiments at the expiration of the leaves of absence which may have been given.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Atlanta, Ga., September 22, 1864.

JAMES E. YEATMAN, Esg.,

Sanitary Commission, Saint Louis, Mo.:

DEAR SIR: Yours of September 14 is received, and I assure you the compliments you have lavished on me make me fear that my services and abilities are overrated. I don't want to be elevated an inch more than I can sustain myself, for pride will have its fall.

The condition of the prisoners at Andersonville has always been present to my mind, and could I have released them I would have felt more real satisfaction than to have now another battle. Indeed, General Stoneman's trip was partly for that purpose, and I fear failed partially because the general took a road east of Ocmulgee, instead of west, as I contemplated and ordered. I have frequent messages from them, and have sent word for the men to be of good cheer; that the day of their deliverance was approaching; but I now think that Jeff. Davis is removing them to Charleston, Savannah, and a point on the Savannah and Macon road at Millen, where a branch puts off for Augusta. My last escaped prisoners left Andersonville on the 12th, at which date many train loads had gone off eastward, and this reduction of the number will improve the condition of the balance.

I am now engaged in exchanging with General Hood a couple thousand of the prisoners, but this is confined to the last 2. 000 captured from my army, who, of course, are not in as bad condition as those who have been longer confined. During the few days that must expire before all the papers are completed I will have occasion to write to General Hood and will offer to send down some fifty or sixty tons of clothing and other necessaries, but I doubt if he will consent. These Confederates are as proud as the devil and hate to confess poverty, but I know they