respective armies now confronting each other before Richmond, and to make such agreement applicable either to existing prisoners or also to those hereafter captured. He stated that he would sign any cartel which was based upon principles of entire equality, and he proposed that exchanges should take place according to the date of capture first, however, exhausting the list of officers. The scale of equivalents to be any one with we might present and which would operate equally; for instance the one exhibited by him to General Wool at a conference between them, and which was taken from a ca United States and Great Britain in 1812, the exchanged persons to be convened by the captors (at the captor's expense) to some point of delivery convenient to the other party, the rule of exchange to operate, uniformly without any right of reservation or exception in any particular case. He professed ignorance of any complaint against his Government in any matter of exchanging prisoners and pledged himself for the removal of any cause of complain upon representation being made. He suggested the propriety of releasing upon parole any surplus of prisoners remaining after exchanged had exhausted either party. I saw no evidence of any disposition to overreach me in this conference. *

* * * * * * *

Trusting that I may not be considered as having committed any impropriety in the interview or in its communication,

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS M. KEY,

Colonel and Aide-de-Camp.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, June 17, 1862.

Brigadier-General WADSWORTH,

Military Governor of the District of Columbia.

GENERAL: It appears there is an officer of the rebel forces at Willard's Hotel named William Monaghan, a captain of the Sixth Louisiana Volunteers. It is not known whether he is no parole or not. The Secretary of War desires that he as well as any others who may be at large here under any circumstances by immediately pu in confinement as in the case of prisoners of war.

I am, sir, &c.,

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NEW MEXICO,
Santa Fe, Mex., June 17, 1862.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE ARMY, Washington, D. C.

SIR: I reported in my communication of May 17 that the officer (Captain Lewis, Fifth Infantry) sent by me from Fort Craig for the purpose of effecting an exchange of prisoners had failed in reaching the army in consequence of the night stage of water in the Rio Grande. It was not my intention to have reviewed this without further instructions from your office, but Captain Lewis meeting with an opportunity of crossing the river proceeded under his original instructions to Donna

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* For Colonel Key's report in full, see Series I, Vol. XI, Part I, p. 1052 et seq.

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