I inclose herewith copies of Mr. Ould's proposition and General Grant's acceptance.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General and Chief of Staff.

Duplicates of above letter and said inclosure sent by same mail to Major General E. R. S. Canby.

ROBERT N. SCOTT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Indorsement.]

DECEMBER 29, 1864.

Lieutenant-General GRANT, City Point:

The within instructions were sent to Generals Canby and Granger on the 19th of November last. They have been repeated via Cairo and New York.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General and Chief of Staff.

OFFICE SUPT. AND INSPECTOR OF MILITARY PRISONS,

Saint Louis, Mo., November 19, 1864.

Colonel JOSEPH DARR, JR., Acting Provost-Marshal-General:

COLONEL: I have carefully read the report of Major Bond, aide-de-camp, in reference to the condition of Gratiot Street Prison, and am pleased to find that in substance and in particulars he complains of exactly that which I have done in all of my reports for the last three months. When Gratiot Street Prison contained on an average of about 480 men the different quarters and apartments were pronounced clean and the prison generally well kept by the many inspectors who were sent from her and Washington. At the same time it was unanimously pronounced an unfit, unhealthy, and unsafe place for prison purposes, which could only be kept in comparatively good order with great care and expense in men and money. Of all this I took particular care to convince the authorities in my weekly reports, and in particular in the one dated October 28, containing eight pages legal cap, accompanied with plans and specifications for a new military prison, as recommended by the board of officers especially appointed by the major-general commanding. When the arrival of several hundred prisoners of war was announced I reported verbally to the provost-marshal-general, as well as to Colonel Baker, that Gratiot Street Prison would not possibly hold any additional number of prisoners without great inconvenience, and recommended in my written report of November 1 that the place already recommended for a new prison be prepared or another place be taken at once. I was then informed that the prisoners would only remain here a day or two, and that Gratiot Prison would be good enough for that time. I thought so myself, and the prisoners were accommodated there as well as possible, but we had to take rooms which had hitherto been used as cellar and for storage, long ago pronounced unfit for human beings. After the prisoners were confined in these unfit quartermasters and overcrowded in the other rooms, known as healthy and good rooms for a proportionate number of prisoners, I made a special report upon Gratiot Street Prison, dated November 10, in which I said: "This state of things cannot long continue without producing the most serious