I am therefore desiered by the Secretary of War to request that you will cause a proper list of both officers and men referred to, stating the time and place of their capture and the date of their release, to be made out and forwarded here as soon as practicable.

Veryrespectfully, your obedient servant,

R. H. CHILTON,

Assistatn Adjutant-General.

COLUMBUS, KY, December 28, 1861.

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN:

I have still on hand about ninety prisoners at Memphis. It is very expensive keeping them there and I am not sure they are as secure as they should be. Cna they not be sent to some other point farther south- Jackson, Miss., or TUscaloosa, Ala., or elsewhere!

L. POLK.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmodn, December 29, 1861.

Major General BENJAMIN HUGER, Norfolk, Va.

SIR: Your several letters of the 20th and 24th and 27th instant, relative to exchnge of prisoners, have been received and occupied the attention of the Deaprtment.

1. I will send to you Captain John W. Sprague, Company E, Seventh Regiment Ohio VOlunteers, and request that you ask in exchange for him Captain Lucius J. Johnson, of North Carolina volunteers, taken at Hatteras andnow in Fort Warren.

2. In exchanbge for Lieutenants Butt and Dalton, of the Navy, I send you Captin Shillinglaw, Company I, Seventy- ninth Regiment New York Volutneers; Captain Wiliam Manson, Company A, Seventy- ninth Regiment New York Volunteers. We have not seamen enough to exdchange for these officers on the scale proposed by Commodore Goldsborough, and we have been guided in the choice of the captains to be tendered inexchnge by the inclosed petitions* of the prisoners themselves, which you are at liberty to inclose to COmmodore Godsborough.

3. In exchange for Dr. James W. Herty, assistant surgeon, C. S. Navy, you or requested to send a rlease of the parole hertofore given to Dr. R. D. Lynde, assistant surgeon, U. S. Army.

4. Yur proposla for exchange of Lieutenant Grimes for Lieutenant Hart is approved.

5. The exchange of the 240 privates rleased from Fort Warren is already ordered and they will proceed by flag of truce immediately, as advised by telegram from General Winder to you.

6. I will send you in another letter the names of the officers exchanged for the nine who accompanied the above- named privates.

7. First Lietueantn Sayre, of the Marine Corps, C. S. Navy, captured wounded at Santa Rosa, was paroled to return to Fort Pickens as soon as his wound permit ulless exchgned for an officer of like grade. I tender inexchnge First Lieutenant William Dickinson, Third Regiment U. S . Infantry, and beg that Commodore Goldsborough be informed of the fact in order that Lieutenant Sayre be relieved of his parole.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

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*Not found.

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