HEADQURTERS DEPARTMENT OF MISSISSIPPI,

Vicksburg, Miss., May 14, 1865.

Brigadier General G. L. ANDREWS,

Provost-Marshal-General, Meridian:

(Care Brigadier-General Tucker, C. S. Army, Jackson.)

The officers and men sent here from Ship Island were understood to be as an offset for the men delivered to us on parole by the Confederates, the Confederate commissioner of exchange having received official notice from General Grant, and it is also undersood from General Canby, that any men in our hadns due them should be delivered here. They were all paroled on the rolls in these words:

The officer signing this parole does so in behalf of all the men above his signature, and all described on this roll are not to perform any military or constabulary duty until regularly exchanged.

It was agreed that these men could terurn to their homes and that they should not be distrubed so long as they obeyed the local laws and observed their parole. The papers they have are furloughs, given them by Colonel Watts, agetn of exchange, C. S. Army.

Full rolls are in the hands of Captain Sterling. The Confederate agents of exchange also have a copy, and another is retained here.

Very respectfully,

N. J. T. DANA,

Major-General.

MAY 15, 1865.

The persons whose names are appended to this respectfully solicit that they may be released from the military prison at Fort Delaware on taking the oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States. Many of them have been in confinement since of battle of Gettysburg. Many are crippled of life. All have either wives or children or mothers and sisters dependent upon them, and all will take the oath from a sense of duty and an earnest determination to fulfill its obligations in the strictest sense.

H. COFFEY,

Lieutenant, Company I, First Texas Legion.

JOHN HUMPHYRYS,

Captain, Fiftieth Virginia Infantry.

[And forty-seven others.]

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
Washingotn, May 18, 1865.

Respectfullty reffered to the Secretary of War with recommendation that the within-named prisoners be released at once and transportation ordered to their States.

I hope early means may be devised for clearing our prisons as far as possible I would recommend that also who come within the amnesty proclamation be allowed the benefit of it. By going now they may still raise something for their subsistence for the coming year and prevent suffering next winter. Prisoners living west of the Mississippi, those from States which never passed the ordinance of secession, and those from the District of columbia, might the made an exception for the present.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.