sought make any change in the location. Colonel Clarke is in possession of my reports. I will write by mail through him more fully. I am urging forward the work.

Very respectfully,

JNO A. HAYDEN,

Engineer in Charge.

WAR DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF MILITARY JUSTICE,

Washington, October 28, 1864.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:

SIR: In answer to your communication of the 12th instant, inclosing a copy of a note in regard to the case of Hardcastle, addressed to you by J. Hume Burnely, esq., charge d'affaires of Great Britain, and upon the contents of which you ask an expression of my views, I have the honor to reply as follows:

This note is principally occupied with a brief review of the detailed report upon the case of Hardcastle, addressed from this Bureay to the previous one of 22nd October, 1863, the opinions entertained upon the merits of this case, as well as upon the principles of international law applicable thereto, were so fully set forth that it would seem that these could not readily be misunderstood. In the criticism, however, of the British charge d'affaires, these opinions appear to have been misinterpreted and their import not faithfully set forth. The writer avers, in the first place, that the opinion of this Bureau in regard to the efficacy of a flag of truce, when used to introduce a person coming from the enemy within our lines, amounts, to quote his language-

To this, the United States regard a flag of truce, when used for the purpose of soliciting and obtaining permission for a particular individual to pass and remain within their lines, as imparting no protection whatever to the person who may come under it into their territory. As thus interpreted it means merely that persons who bring it are not to be fired upon while they pass the space that intervenes between the lines of the enemies, and while the flag itself is exhibited, but that as soon as they are within the lines of the United States they may be treated in exactly the same manner as if they had been made prisoners of war.

This statement of the views of this Bureau is an erroneous one, and had the language of the report been quoted it would at once have been seen that such an interpretation was mistaken and ill-considered. What was actually held was, that the person who comes within our lines from the enemy under flag of truce is received subject to the supervision and control of the police power to which all strangers entering military lines must necessarily be subjected. Protected by the flag during his transit, he is prima facie entitled to enter our lines under it, but his reception does not necessarily be subjected. Protected by the flag during his transit, he is prima facie entitled to enter our lines under it, but hiss reception does not necessarily preclude his subsequent detention for the purpose of precautionary examination into his character and business. That the enforcement of such a rule should sometimes expose neutrals to a temporary inconvenience is unavoidable; but not to enforce it would be to open the door to the free admission within our territory of all such traitors, spies, and dangerous persons as the public enemy might choose to send among us. But the report in question cannot be construed as importing that persons received under the flag may "be treated in exactly the same manner as if they had been made prisoners of war. " On the contrary, wherever any civilian thus received is ascertained to have come into our terri-