department. General health of prisoners - good. Vigilance of guard - very good with a few exceptions.

Remarks and suggestions. Nothing has been done in the way of improvements this week on account of the pending decision upon the estimates of costs for the improvements spoken of and detailed in my last report. I think it would be for the benefit of the service to have that question decided as soon as possible. Our prisons continue to be in statu quo.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GUST. HEINRICHS,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Inspecting Officer.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

Saint Louis, Mo., December 28, 1864.

The inclosed report of Lieutenant-General Heinrichs is approved and respectfully forwarded.

J. H. BAKER,

Colonel and Provost-Marshal-General.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE WEST,
Charleston, S. C., December 27, 1864.

Brigadier General JOHN H. WINDER,

Commissary-General of Prisoners, Columbia, S. C.:

GENERAL: I am directed by General Beauregard to reply to your letter of the 24th instant as follows: It is deemed best that preparations for the removal of the prisoners at Florence to some other point be made as soon as possible. The reserves now guarding them surely can be taken to the newly prepared prison, whether in or out of the State of South Carolina, until reserves from the State to which the prisoners are taken can be called out to relieve them. No troops can be spared from this command to relieve them at this time. The prisoners at Thomasville have been sent to Andersonville. It is not deemed expedient or judicious to locate the prisoners now at Salisbury so near (fourteen miles) to Columbia. Let the prison be, say, at least 100 miles from Columbia.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN M. OTEY,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CITY POINT, VA., December 28, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

Judge Ould informs me that 1,000 bales of cotton were on shipboard at Mobile on the 25th waiting the declaration of readiness on the part of the Federal authorities to receive the same. I supposed the commanding officer at Mobile had been notified long ago to receive the cotton when offered, and that it had been received in New York before this. Will you please have the notice given now?

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.