NAVY DEPARTMENT, December 31, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: The continued imprisonment of our seamen in Texas, their sufferings, and the large mortality among them cannot but be a matter of much solicitude to their relatives and friends and to the Navy Department. In the course of six months thirty out of a crew of less than seventy of one of our vessels, the Granite City, captured in May last, have died. The mortality in the crews of other vessels has scarcely been less. It was understood a short time since that an obstacle in the way of their exchange was the detention of Admiral Buchanan, who was captured at Mobile, the rebel authorities in Texas refusing to deliver up any of them unless they could receive him in return. I therefore requested Major-General Butler to propose Admiral Buchanan in exchange for them. Whether he has made the proposition or not I am not informed. Delay in this matter is truly dangerous to our unfortunate captives in Texas, and I am, therefore, constrained once again to address you concerning them, and to ask that the Commissioner of Exchange may be instructed to offer Admiral Buchanan and any other naval prisoners connected with the insurgent Government in our possession, especially for the naval prisoners belonging to our own Government now held in Texas. If the proposition be accepted Admiral Buchanan and companions might be immediately delivered to the insurgent authorities at the nearest convenient point.

Very respectfully,

GIDEON WELLES,

Secretary of the Navy.

[First indorsement.]

Referred to Major-General Hitchcock with directions to comply with the request of the Secretary of the Navy.

By order of the Secretary of War:

C. A. DANA,

Assistant Secretary.

[Second indorsement.]

This copy is respectfully furnished to Major-General Canby as having a bearing upon the letter from the undersigned of the 3rd instant. *

E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Major-General of Volunteers and Commissioner of Exchange.

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
City Point, Va., December 31, 1864.

General E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Washington, D. C.:

Your communication of date 28th instant, inclosing copy of letter of George H. Stuart, esq., chairman Christian Commission, is received. I have no objection to the parties named, or a similar number of other good men, going South for the purpose indicated. I am inclined to think that much reliable information of the condition of our prisoners could thus be obtained. It might lead to the amelioration of their condition, and would at least have a most beneficial effect upon the public mind.

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*January 3, 1865. See Vol. VIII, this series, p. 15.

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