WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, November 16, 1865- 4.30 p. m.

ROBERT MURRAY, Esq., U. S. Marshal, New York:

You will delvier Goerge Davis, late rebel Attorney- General, to General Burke, at Fort Lafayette, to be held in close custody until further order. Acopy of this telegram will be authority to General Burke to receive the prisoner from you.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War

WAR DEPARTMETN, BUREAU OF MILITARY JUSTICE,

November 16, 1865.

The SECRETARY OF WAR:

Respectfully returned.* In a report made from this Bureau on the 3rd instant it was stated that-

While the evidence on the trial of Wirz was deemed by the court to implicate R. B. Winder in the conspiracy against the lives of Federal prisoners in rebel hands, no such specific overt acts of violation of the laws of war are as yet fixed upon him as to make it expedient to prefer formal charges and bring him to trial.

Such being the state of the proof,it is advised that he be released and allowed to resume his former status of prisoner of war on parole.

J. HOLT,

Judge- Advocate- General.

WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., November 22, 1865.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following statement as my general report for the current year on the subject of the exchange of prisoners of war; in doing which I find it necessary to revert to some facts of a precedent date in order taht the subject may be the better udnerstood.

At an early period of the rebellion a cartel for the exchagne of priosners was agreed upon in conformity witht he authority of the Preseident,as communicated to General Dix by the Secretary of War in the follwoing dispatch, which contains on its face an important limitation, carefully guarding agaisnt any recognition of the rebel government, the object having expressly in view the humane purpose of extending relief to prisoners of war:

WAR DEAPRTMETN, Washington City, July 12, 1862.

Major General JOHN A. DIX, Fort Monroe:

The President directs me to say that he authorizes you to negotiate a general exchagne of prisoners with the enemy.

You will take immediate measures for that purpose, observing proper caution against any recognition of the rebel government and confining the negotiation to the subject of exchange. The cartel between the United States and Great Britain has been considered a proper regulation as to the relative exchange value of prisoners.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

The agreement, signed by General Dix on the part of the Govnerment, and Geneal Hill on the part of the rebels, was duly anlounced in public orders by authority dated War Deaprtment, Adjutant-Geenral's Office, Washington, Deptember 25, 1862, a copy of which is herunto annexed.+

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*Probably Brown to Stanton,november 14, p. 796.

+See Vol. IV, this series, p. 555.

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