advise the adoption of measures for the transmittal of necessaries to prisoners of war from their friends residing North and South. Whatever articles (not contraband) you will permit the friends of Union prisoners in your power to send to them, assuring me of their safe delivery, the same will be allowed to be sent to the Confederate prisoners in our hands by their friends within the Southern States.

I have the honor to remain, respectfully, yours,

J. G. FOSTER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
October 21, 1864.

Major General J. C. BRECKINRIDGE, Commanding, &c., Wytheville:

GENERAL: General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th instant, and to repeat the gratification the handsome success at Saltville afforded him, and his satisfaction with the arrange ments and dispositions made by you. He hopes your efforts to promote the efficiency of the troops in your department will be soon attended with the success they deserve.

He is much pained to hear of the treatment the negro prisoners are reported to have received, and agrees with you in entirely condemning it. That a general officer should have been guilty of the crime you mention meets with his unqualified reprobation. He directs that if the officer is still in your department you prefer charges against him and bring him to trial. Should he have left your department you will forward the charges to be transmitted to the Department, in order that such action may be taken as the case calls for.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHARLES MARSHALL,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Aide-de-Camp.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S. C., October 22, 1864.

Colonel W. HOFFMAN,

Commissary-General of Prisoners, Washington, D. C.:

COLONEL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication dated October 13, in which you desire information as to what articles may be sent to Union prisoners of war at Charleston.

The following is a list of articles which are frequently sent across the lines, and which I have every reason to believe are received by our prisoners, the same being in each instance receipted for by a staff officer of the rebel commander, who gives assurance of safe delivery.

Money, boxes containing coarse clothing, plain provisions, writing and smoking materials, toilet articles, and small parcels of medicine; the box not to exceed two feet in length by one in width and one in depth; the contents to be plainly marked on the outside.

The rebel agent of exchange recently assured one of my staff officers that clothing in large quantities would be safely delivered to the Union prisoners in Charleston, upon which assurance the Sanitary Commission have sent about $20,000 worth of clothing here, which is now awaiting transfer.