SPECIAL ORDERS,
OFFICE COM. GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Numbers 49.
Washington, D. C., December 30, 1864.

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X. By authority of the Secretary of War all rebel officers now confined at Johnson's Island who were captured at Helena, Ark., July 4, 1863; all officers captured by the forces of Major-General Steele in the Department of Arkansas prior to July 28, 1864, and all officers captured at Fort Butler, Donaldsonville, La., in June, 1863, will be transferred under charge of proper officers and guard to New Orleans via Cairo or Saint Louis, as may be most expedient, to be delivered for exchange to Major-General Canby, commanding Military Division of West Mississippi, or to such officer as he may designate to receive them. None who desire to take the oath of allegiance will be sent. Duplicate parole-rolls will accompany the prisoners and an ordinary roll will be forwarded to this office. A roll of those (if any) who desire to take the oath of allegiance will also be forwarded to this office.

Previous instructions from this office with regard to the character of transportation to be furnished will be observed.

Colonel C. W. Hill, commanding Johnson's Island, is charged with the execution of this order and will report the departure of the prisoners by telegram.

XI. By authority of the Secretary of War all prisoners of war now confined at Rock Island, Ill., who were captured at Helena, Ark., July 4, 1863, and by the forces of Major-General Steele in the Department of Arkansas prior to July 28, 1864, will be transferred under charge of proper officers and guard via Cairo or Saint Louis, as may be most expedient, to be delivered for exchange to Major-General Canby, commanding Military Division of West Mississippi, or to such officer as he may designate to receive them.

None who desire to take the oath of allegiance will be sent.

Duplicate parole-rolls will accompany the prisoners and an ordinary roll will be forwarded to this office. A roll of those who desire to take the oath of allegiance will also be forwarded to this office.

Previous instructions from this office with regard to the character of transportation to be furnished will be observed.

Colonel A. J. Johnson, commanding Rock Island, Ill., is charged with the execution of this order and will report the departure of the prisoners by telegram.

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By order of H. W. Wessells, brigadier-general, U. S. Volunteers, Inspector of Commissary-General of Prisoners:

W. T. HARTZ,
Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General.

Mrs. M. L. Hambleton gives detailed statement of facts in the case of Dr. James P. Hambleton. *

[Indorsement.]

DECEMBER 30, 1864.

Returned to General Bragg.

This is a familiar case, as you perhaps may have inferred from Mrs. Hambleton's letter. The Yankees for nearly two years have been making efforts to get Richardson (the Tribune correspondent) out of our hands. (See Official Correspondence, pp. 68 and 69, accompanying.) The

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*Mrs. Hambleton's letter not found.

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