favorable position than that occupied by the others has been carefully avoided. the published correspondence of this office shows the entire readiness of our Government to return an equivalent for any Confederate officer and soldier sent within our lines. Who that equivalent shall be we have reserve the right to determine, and when the selection is made and the party delivered and not a special exchange. To refuse to return the equivalent would be to doom the officer or soldier to hope lesser liberty had dawned upon him.

I am happy to be able to announce that an agreement has recently been made with the Federal authorities by which each Government may send contributions of food and clothing to the prisoners held by the averse party. We are at liberty to make our purchases either in Europe or a Northern city. When the details have been fully arranged I will communicate them to you.

The enemy still continues the arrest of non-combatants. I have been notified by the Federal authorities that "all white persons between the ages of seventeen and fifty, residents of the Confederate States, captured by the U. S. forces, will be held and deemed to be soldiers of the Confederate Army, and will be treated as prisoners of war and held for exchange. " In view of their practice and this declaration, the course to be pursued by us toward non-combatants who are residents of the United States, or who, being citizens of the Confederate States, are hostile to our cause, becomes a subject of the gravest importance. After much reflection, I am fully convinced that the only effectual method of preventing the outrages which are being daily perpetrated upon our loyal non-combatant citizens is to cause the arrest of every citizen of the United States who may be within our reach and of such citizens of any one of the Confederate States as are known to be inimical. We have tried every other plan without much avail. At present we have so small a number in confinement that an exchange of man for man would release but very few of the many held in Northern prisons. If the plan suggested worked no other result, it would furnish us, in the event of an exchange, with more material. I know there are very many grave objections to this course, but yet I think it may almost be safely stated that the horrors under which our non-combatant population are now suffering can hardly be increased. When we have resorted to such arrests as are made by the enemy, there is some change that the whole system will break down by the sheer weight of it's gigantic misery.

Respectfully, you obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

HDQRS. C. S. MIL. PRISONS, GEORGIA AND ALABAMA,
Camp Lawton, Ga., November 1, 1864.

General S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond, Va.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to inclose an order from Lieutenant-General Taylor and dan extract from a letter from Captain Henderson, commanding prison at Cahaba, Ala. * It will be seen that General Taylor has assumed command of the prison. I would observe that the rules laid down in that order are already in force. If commanders of prisoners are prohibited to employ prisoners for certain purposes, it will

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*Extract from Henderson's letter not found.

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