[Inclosure.]

JULY 29, 1861.

Respectfully submitted to the Secretary of War with the recommendation that General Winder be authorized to employ two or three civilians to assist him, with such compensation as the Secretary of War may determine. The great demand for commissioned officers elsewhere renders it impossible to retain them on duty here.

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

ADJUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Richmond, Va., July 29, 1861.

General J. E. JOHNSTON,

Commanding Army of the Potomac, Manassas, Va.

SIR: Your letter of the instant* inclosing one of the 26th from

General Bonham reporting the hanging of two sentinels of the South Carolina troops who were captured on the 17th instant by the enemy near centerville has been received and submitted to the President, who instructs me to state that you will send a flag to the general commanding the forces of the enemy in front of you, report to him the case and require that he deliver to you as criminals the persons who perpetrated the offense or avow his responsibility for the act, and in the latter case that you will retaliate, retaining in your possession for that purpose of the enemy twice the number of those of our troops that were thus ignominiously executed.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Raleigh, N. C., July 29, 1861.

Honorable L. P. WALKER:

I beg leave most respectfully to inquire in what maner I shall treat the prisons of war+ sent on here by Lieutenant Todd a week since. They were sent on here without any previous notice. I had no quarters for them and no instructions from you how I should treat them. Rather than embarrass you I received them from Lieutenant Todd and have had them shut up in a house ever since with a full company of our volunteers guarding. The officers on their parole are walking about the streets. They are without oney and have applied to me for what be necessary to meet their demands (daily), and I am provided with no funds for them but have ordered each of them servered with soldier's rations. The men are guarded in a house by a company of volunteers greatly to their annoyance. They have been furnished with food and with clothes.

They were sent here without notice or preparation, but I received them rather than return them, and I have received no instructions as to how or in what manner they should be treated. I with the moder of treating prisoners, but I ordered them food and clotking without any instructions to do so from the Confederate States of legal authority from my own State.

They are odious to our people and the guarding of them is regarded as degrading among our volunteers. But for these considerations I

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*Not found, but see Johnston to McDowell, July 31, p. 23.

+See also Clark to Walker, August 6, Vol II, this Series, p. 1367.

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