For more than a year I have been proposing to the U. S. authorities to mutually exchange persons who have been connected with the merchant or transport service of the two belligerent respectively. I have offered to give or receive army equivalents for the excess. This proposition was accepted some months ago and afterward declined. It is unfair to ask us to give naval officers and seamen for parties connected with the merchant service when we have in our custody a large number of prisoners who are exactly in your position.

Through you I now renew the offer heretofore made. We will agree to the immediate and unconditional release of all persons connected with the merchant or transport service on either side, or if that is not satisfactory, that army equivalents be given to the party which has the excess.

Mr. Mallory authorizes me to say that he concurs in these views.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 299.
Washington, December 7, 1864.

I. Brigadier General Joseph Hayes, U. S. Volunteers, and Colonel Stephen M. Weld, Jr., Fifty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers, prisoners of war, are selected by the Government of the United States as the officers to be placed on parole, agreeable to the arrangement entered into by Lieutenant-General Grant and Commissioner Ould to receive and distribute to the U. S. prisoners of war such articles of clothing and other necessaries herein mentioned as may be issued by the Government or contributed from other sources.

Should either General Hayes or Colonel Weld be unable to perform these duties, Colonel Thomas H. Butler, Fifth Indiana Cavalry, and Lieutenant Colonel John A. Maus, Two hundred and second Pennsylvania Volunteers, are designed as their alternates.

II. The United States Government will forwarded to its prisoners of war in the South the following articles: Uniform hats, uniform caps, uniform coats, uniform jackets, flannel shirts, drawers, bootees, stockings, blankets, woolen; blankets, gum; commissary stores.

The friends of the U. S. prisoners of war confined in the South are permitted to forward to them, by flag-of-truce or other authorized channel, the following articles: Coats, underclothes, caps, suspenders, brushes, buttons, sewing cotton, pocketknives, steel pens, postage stamps, pipes, sirups, lard, bologna sausage, pepper, pants, socks, shoes, looking-glasses, combs, tape, pins and needles, paper, lead pencils, tobacco, snuff, family soap, smoked beef, corn-meal, mustard, vests, hats, handkerchiefs, towels, clothes brooms, thread, scissors, envelopes, penknives, cigars, crushed sugar, butter, beef tongue, nutmegs, table salt, salt fish, pickets, dried fruit, apples, crockery, meats and fish in cans, crackers, sauces, lemons, matches, glassware, cheese, vegetables, nuts, yeast powder, tinware.

III. All articles for prisoners of war will be forwarded to Colonel John E. Mulford, agent for exchange of prisoners of war, at Fort Monroe, Va.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.