With the exception of a very few men, who are supposed to have escaped, this number (1,815) embraces all of our prisoners in Texas. A final settlement will be made in a few days with the Confederate agent, when I will be able to submit a final report, closing, it is hoped, the busines of the office.

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

WM. McE. DYE,

Colonel and Agent of Exchange, Mil. Div. of West Mississippi.

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Numbers 103. Washington, May 31, 1865.

1. All Federal troops received on parole by Colonel Charles C. Dwight, agent of exchange in the Military Division of West Mississippi, at Red River, La., in February, 1865, are declared exchanged.

2. The enlisted men named in Special Orders, Numbers 145, Department of Mississippi, April 29, 1865, delivered to the U. S. authorities at Vicksburg, April 28, 1865, are delcared exchanged.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 31, 1865.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

Commanding Armies of the United States, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: To facilitate the release of prisoners of war without its being too much hurried, and to save much labor in your office, and this one also, I would respectfully suggest that the commanding officers of military prisons be directed to release, on their taking the oath of allegiance, fifty or more per day, taking those below the rank of general and in alphabetical order, commencing with each letter of the alphabet and taking of that letter in proportion to the number of names beginning with it. None to be discharged under this arrangement against whom there are charges of any kind, and a list to be furnished daily to this office of those discharged. There are seventeen military prisons at which are confined over 50,000 prisoners, adn at the rate of fifty per day it will take near sixty days to vacate the prisons. There are about 5,000 officers in confinement, all of whom might be excluded from release, except on special application, if thought advisable.

There are a number of citizens in confinement without charges, and some against whom there are charges who have not been tried. Inasmuch as all who have been tried and sentenced to confinement during the war have been pardoned it would seem that the prisoners above referred to might also be released, with perhaps a few exception of those awaiting trial.

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

W. HOFFMAN,

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

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, May 31, 1865.

WILLIAM HUNTER, Esq., Acting Secretary of State:

SIR: I am instructed by the Secretary of War to transmit certain letters written by Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. C. C. Clay and