and I hasten to answer as soon as my pressing engagements have permitted. Although Colonel Battle may be disabled for active service I will nevertheless exchanges him for an officer of the same rank provided you will indicate one who did not command a brigade in your expedition. But the prisoners of war having been sent to the interior, the colonel you now desire to have in exchange will have to be sent for and will be delivered at some point to be arranged hereafter. Meantime I hope you will feel authorized to permit Colonel Battle to be released on his parole, so that as soon as practicable he may have the benefit of the care of his family and friends in his injured condition. I have been induced to make the distinction in connection with colonels commanding brigades because I have observed that nearly if not all brigades in the U. S. service during this war are in command of colonels while in the Confederate service most of our brigades are commanded by brigadiers. Consequently unless some such distinction shall be regarded we may suffer materially in exchanges. I propose also in few days either to permit the medical officers of your army in my possession to return to your camp or to send them by the Mississippi River to General Pope.

Respectfully, general, your obedient servant,

[G. T. BEAUREGARD.]

MICKIE'S (HOSPITAL), WITHIN THE CONFEDERATE LINES,

April 13, 1862.

General

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,

Commanding (Front Division).

GENERAL: Inclosed I send you an aggreement entered into between Doctor Avent and myself, approved by General Breckinridge, for the exchange of sixty-three of our wounded now remaining at this point. To render the arrangement complete it requires your approval. I hope, general, for the sake of humanity and a regard for my arrangements that you will be pleased to give it your approval, that we may at once effect their removal to within our lines, as I have exhausted all means in remedies, bandages and provisions to render my patients even a bare existence. An early reply will greatly confer upon the wounded of our army [copy illegible]. Rev. L. C. Pace, of the Twenty-fifth Missouri Volunteers, is with me. The wounded consist of no particular regiment or division.

I am, truly, your obedient servant,

G. H. RUMBAUGH,

Surgeon, Twenty-fifth Regiment Missouri Vols., U. S. Army.

[Inclosure.]

GENERAL HARDEE'S HOSPITAL,

McNairy County, Tenn., April 9, 1862.

Surg. G. H. Rumbaugh, of the Federal Army, on the one part, and B. W. Avent, medical director and surgeon for General J. C. Breckinridge, of the Confederate Army, on the other, have agreed to make the following stipulations relations to the wounded of the Federal Army at this depot who would probably be injured by a removal to Corinth:

First. B. W. Avent will permit to remain here under the control of Surgeon Rumbaugh sixty-three of the wounded of the Federal Army, who will be exchanged by an equal number of wounded prisoners of