All these stores to be receipted for, distributed, and expended by a board of three officers from the prisoners of war held by either party above the rank of company officers at each prison, to be designated by the party from whom such officers were captured, who shall be paroled for that purpose and shall have full liberty to communicate with the commissioners of exchange of the Confederate authorities and the United States in open letters, it being understood and agreed that no articles furnished by either government for the use of its prisoners shall be upon any pretense or for any cause whatever diverted from the use for which they are dedicated, and any surplus of articles furnished by the United States or by the Confederate Government are to be returned to the place whence received by either party and put at the disposal of the party owning the same, except that tents, if any, purchase by Confederates, are not to be taken within the military lines, but may be disposed of by sale in such manner as may be decided by the authorities.

Any other minor details not provided for in these instructions will be the subject of further just and equitable arrangements.

It is further understood and agreed that either party shall have the privilege of putting a surgeon on each board as one of three officers herein provided for.

All these terms are believed to be so manifestly equitable and just and wills o relieve either party from complaint of the other party that it is hoped they will be accepted.

It being expressly understood and agreed that this arrangement being made from motives of humanity and to relieve evils necessarily inherent to a state of war, nothing contained therein shall be taken to have altered, changed, or in any way affected the rights, duties, or liabilities of either belligerent party except and so far as only therein set forth and agreed.

If in any minor points any objections are made on the part of the Confederate authorities, you will report the objection and it will be carefully considered, and unless vital, will be yielded to. The terms upon which supplies may be furnished you will write out separately from your letter of instructions as propositions for agreement, certify them officially, and deliver them to the Confederate agent so that there may be no mistake in the terms offered.

If, as may be the case, it is objected by the Confederate authorities that the United States hold a larger number of prisoners taken from the Confederate Army than the Confederate authorities hold of prisoners taken from the Army of the United States, and that therefore accepting these terms will impose a burden upon the Confederate authorities greater than that assumed by the United States, although such claim would not apparently be well founded, yet the Government of the United States being very anxious to relieve, in so far as they may, their prisoners of war from what they are instructed and believe to be great want and distress, you are authorized to offer, rather than the negotiation shall be broken off upon this point, that if the Confederate authorities supply a n umber of the prisoners held by the United States according to the equivalent established by the cartel, using that as a measure equal to the number of the officers and soldiers held by the Confederate authorities, that hen the Un precisely the same and not other and different shelter, clothing, fuel, food, and medicines with which the Confederate authorities supply an equal number of their prisoners held by the United States. But this proposition is