of parties interested. I shall be able to forward a report on this matter during the present week.

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

JNO E. MULFORD,

Brevet Brigadier-General, U. S. Agent for Exchange.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.]

OFFICE U. S. AGENT FOR EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS,

Richmond, August 2, 1865.

Major General E. A. HITCHCOCK,

Commissioner for Exchange, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: I am now at work on such records as I have been able to gather up in making out the balances due our prisoners for moneys taken from them by the rebels. These amounts will be based upon the figures of the Confederate officials, and will only be incorrect in being too low, as I am already satisfied that in many instances prisoners were not credited with the full amount of their deposits. I shall in a few days be able to furnish to Lieutenant-General Grant a full and careful list of the names and amounts in kind of all who have moneys to their credit here. I estimate it to reach an aggregate of $750 coin, $44,000 U. S. Treasury notes, $3,000 bank bills, and Confederate notes, a large sum (not material).

I have already received of this fund from different sources the following, viz, coin, $372.70; U. S. Treasury notes; $28,671; bank notes, $5,909.75. We are now on the track of about $3,000 more in U. S. Treasury notes, which I hope to secure. We also have official evidence that $15,000 in U. S. currency belonging to Union prisoners was turned over by the prison officials on order of the Confederate Quartermaster-General to his department. There are also, I suppose, moneys to be accounted for by the prison quartermasters at Danville, Salisbury, Charleston, and Andersonville, though I am unable to obtain any information on that subject here.

I shall be able to pay on claims now on record, according to the above estimate, coin about 50 per cent and U. S. Treasury notes about 60 per cent. There are also many other claims being made of which there is no record, and I have thought proper to offer for the consideration of our authorities the following suggestion, viz, the appropriation of sufficient of the captured property of the enemy to create a fund of $50,000, which would, in my opinion, enable us to pay the full amount of the balances as shown by rebel records, and also pay all claims made by prisoners in whose cases no record is found (these latter to be adjusted and determined by depositions and circumstantial evidence, with such precautions as might be thought necessary to prevent frauds). It it be considered impositic to make this arrangement I would suggest the propriety of appropriating the necessary amount from the saving fund which has accumulated at the various prison camps, and which might be considered a more appropriate fund for this purpose than any order. The subject is one upon there seems to be such feeling, and I am of the opinion that no expenditure of money could be made where se great justice and good can be effected as in this. You will understand these claims are not for moneys sent to prisoners from their friends at the North, but are for moneys taken from them at the time of their capture, and my observation in the cases already brought before me proves the fact that these are, as a general thing, the sober and prudent men, who do not squader their money in camp, and therefore seem entitled to greater consideration than they otherwise