LEXINGTON, February 23, 1865.

General JOHNSON:

Can you send transportation for 500 prisoners here, disabled?

J. V. SYMONS,

Lieutenant-Colonel Sixth Regiment.

[Indorsement.]

Captain BOOTH:

Inquire what is the meaning of his dispatch and answer that transportation cannot be furnished for 500. They must walk, if only six miles a day.

J. K. Mitchell, flag officer, Provisional Navy, C. S., is informed that the enemy have planted torpedoes in the James River below Cox's Landing.

[Indorsement.]

FEBRUARY 23, 1865.

Returned to Honorable Secretary of the Navy.

Cox's Landing is below Boulware's Wharf, where the recent deliveries have been made. We have never gone below Cox's Wharf with truce boats since Butler's first occupation of Bermuda Hundred. Since that time we have placed torpedoes in the river between Boulware's and Cox's Wharves. They lie this side of the alleged torpedoes mentioned in this letter. If prisoners are sent below Boulware's Wharf to Cox's they run the danger of our torpedoes, but in no event do they risk anything from those placed in the river by the Federals. If there were no torpedoes below Cox's Wharf we could not use the river, because there are obstructions in that neighborhood which prevent the passage of boats. In this state of facts is it expedient to say anything to the enemy about torpedoes which they have placed below ours? I am convinced that all the torpedoes which the enemy have placed between Cox's Wharf and their obstructions are galvanic.

[RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT,
Richmond, February 22, 1865.

Lieutenant General R. S. EWELL, Commanding Department of Richmond:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that in accordance with your instructions I to-day inspected the hospital for Federal prisoners. This is under the charge of Surg. G. W. Semple and is conducted upon the same principles as the general Confederate hospitals - the same proportion of assistant surgeons, the same rations, &c. All the attendants, cooks, &c., are Federal prisoners, and as any number can be had that are necessary, the hospital has in this particular an advantage that are necessary, the hospital has in this particular an advantage over the Confederate hospitals. the police of the hospital in good; every[thing] about it being neat and in good order. During this month the average number of patients has been 500 per day, and the number of deaths a very small fraction over two per day, the deaths being mostly from diarrhea and pneumonia. There are no contagious or infections diseases among the patients. The reason why twelve men were buried from the hospital in one day was owing to the fact that the undertaker did not furnish the coffins for several days and the dead