to deliver in this bay for shipment to New York for the benefit of prisoners of war to the United States.

Captain Frank G. Noyes, U. S. Army, of General Granger's staff, will accompany the officers and crew detailed from the vessels under my command to take charge of the vessel that you may send, and after the cotton shall have been transferred to the vessel now in this bay for transportation to New York, the vessel will be returned to your officers and crew at or near as may be the same place at which the delivery may be made, and to return immediately within the lines of your obstructions. No person from beyond the lines will be permitted to remain in or come down the bay with the vessel containing cotton.

Respectfully,

THORNTON A. JENKINS,

Captain, Commanding First Division, West Gulf Squadron.

The steam tug Buckthorn, one of the vessels of this division, was kept eleven days waiting, near the obstructions off Choctaw Point, for the steamer with the rebel cotton. Major-General Maury indicated the Heroine, one of the rebel blockade-runners, but after twenty days' delay a miserable and unsafe river steamer was sent out, apparently with the hope that the vessel and cotton might be lost in our hands.

THORNTON A. JENKINS,

Captain, Commanding First division, West Gulf Squadron.

NEW YORK, December 26, 1864.

Brigadier General H. E. PAINE, U. S. Army, Present:

GENERAL: I have the honor to state that the late arrangement made between Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, U. S. Army, and Colonel Robert Ould, Confederate agent of exchange, on the 11th and 12th of November, for supplying prisoners of war through the agency of their respective Governments, was thought and understood to be an act of justice and humanity to alleviate the sufferings of destitute and needy soldiers who had fought bravely in the defense of their respective Governments.

The Federal prisoners of war are all confined in the South where there is not, even during the severest winter, much suffering from cold weather. The Confederate Government has, I know, given all facilities to the U. S. agent, under the late arrangement, and before this date the U. S. prisoners of war are doubtless bountifully supplied with all necessary articles of clothing and other supplies. The Confederate prisoners of war are confined in Northern prisons where the rigors of winter are distressingly severe even to the well-clothed inhabitants of the country. Many of the Confederate prisoners are very destitute of clothing, and much that they have is the thin clothing worn in the South during the summer heat. I see letters every day laying forth in strong terms the suffering of the prisoners during the cold weather that has lasted for the past two weeks. From eighteen months' prison life I know that all that the letters state is true. Twenty days since I was paroled to carry out, on the part of the Confederate Government, the late arrangement, and during all this time have not been able to forward a single article of supplies to the suffering Confederate prisoners, from the fact that the 1,000 bales of cotton which were to be shipped from Mobile, Ala., in a U. S. vessel, and to be delivered to me at this city and to be sold by me and the proceeds applied to the purchase of supplies, has not yet arrived.