OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Detroit, July 3, 1862.

C. A. ARTHUR, Inspector-General, New York City:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 23rd ultimo in which you request information respecting the place of confinement of Surg. or Asst. Surg. Dabney Herndon, a rebel prisoner taken at Island Numbers 10. In reply I beg to inform you that the complete lists of the medical officers of the rebel army confined as prisoners of war have not been received at this office and I am consequently unable at present to comply with your request. It is probable, however, that the officer above mentioned has been released. Order of the Secretary of War required such disposition of commissioned medical officers.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, July 3, 1862.

General L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General U. S. Army.

SIR: The report* of Colonel Hoffman, commissary-general of prisoners, "relative to the accommodation of prisoners at Fort Delaware" referred from your office to the Quartermaster-General on the 24th ultimo, is respectfully returned herewith. Colonel Crosman, deputy quartermaster-general, Philadelphia, has been directed to carry out the suggestions of Colonel Hoffman so far as the Quartermaster's Department is concerned.

By order:

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. S. SIBLEY,

Brevet Colonel, U. S. Army, Deputy Quartermaster-General.

JULY 3, 1862.

Colonel D. D. TOMPKINS,

Assistant Quartermaster-General, New York.

COLONEL: You will please cause the suggestions contained in a letter from Colonel Hoffman, commissary-general of prisoners, to the Secretary of War, referred through the Adjutant-General's Office to the Quartermaster-General, as embraced in the inclosed extract therefrom, to be carried out.

By order:

E. S. SIBLEY,

Brevet Colonel, U. S. Army, Deputy Quartermaster-General.

[Inclosure.]

Extract from a letter of Colonel William Hoffman, dated New York City, June 17, 1862, to the Secretary of War:

Governor's Island is better adapted for the reception of prisoners than any place in the interior and I would respectfully suggested that sheds for the accommodation of 5,000 be erected there immediately. The cost of transportation thence to an

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*Omitted here; see Hoffman to Stanton, June 15, with indorsement, p. 23.

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