CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,

Richmond, Va., March 2, 1865.

Brigadier General J. C. VAUGHN, Bristol, Tenn.:

GENERAL: Your letter of the 19th ultimo has been received and referred to the agent of exchange. I am directed by the Secretary of War to say that an arrangement for the release of all citizen prisoners has recently been effected. This will obiate the necessity of sending to you any Union men of Tennessee held as prisoners, to be exchanged for the citizens forwarded by the provost marshal of East Tennessee. I am assured by the agent of exchange that all proper subjects for release belonginng to this class, including those at Salisbury, will be delivered at the earliest possible date at City Point or on the Wilmington lines. You are authorized to communicate this assurance to the provost-marshal of East Tennessee.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

SAML. W. MELTON,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General

HDQRS. DEPT. OF MISSISSIPPI AND EAST LOUISIANA,
West Point, Miss., March 2, 1865.

Colonel J. G. PARKHURST,

Provost-Marshal-General, Dept. of the Cumberland, U. S. Army:

It will be the 10th at least before we can send prisoners to Iuka. High water and bad condition of roads render it impossible to do so earlier.

N. B. FORREST,

Major-General.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., March 3, 1865.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

Commanding Armies of the United States, City Point, Va.:

GENERAL: Some months since twenty-six citizen prisoners were, by order of the Secretary of War, sent from the Old Capitol to Fort Delaware to be hld as hospages for Union citizens held at Salisbury, N. C. In the meantime some of them have been discharged on taking the oath of allegiance and others are applying to do so. Pursuant to your telegram of the 23rd ultimo, and with the approbation of the War Department, I have directed that such of these men as still remain at Fort Delaware who desire to be exchanged be forwarded to City Point for exchange, or to be disposed of as you may think proper. They will be on a list by themselves.

All citizen prisoners of the class designated in your telegram of the 23rd have been ordered to be forwarded for exchange, and I will furnish you a list of those who remain, with the charges against them, as soon as reports are received from the camps where they are held.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Bvt. Brigadier General, U. S. Army, Commissary-General of Prisoners.