they had all been provided and that the work of putting the camp in a wholesome state of police was by this time well in progress if not already completed. Please call upon Captain Potter for as many of these things as may be absolutely necessary. Three carts to belong permanently to the camp with as many more hired while the necessity for active sanitary measures is so urgent, will perhaps be the best arrangement, but if more could be used to advantage have enough to perform the work promptly. I instructed Captain Potter also to purchase the portable saw-mill, but as it has not yet been done you may let that rest till we see the result of the negotiations for a general exchange of prisoners which the papers this morning announce to be in prospect of satisfactory settlement. If an exchange is agreed upon there will be no occasion for the mill. When I was in Chicago I promised Mrs. Bradley that I would give such orders in relation to the waste of water at the camp as would insure that her house should no longer be injured by the neglect of this matter, and I gave the necessary orders which should have protected her from the nuisance. Will you please see that proper arrangements are made immediately to prevent such a waste of water as has been tolerated to day and to carry what is unavoidably spilt away from Mrs. Bradley's house? I beg you to have this matter attended to at once, as there is no possible excuse why Mrs. B[radley] should have suffered so seriously and so unnecessarily. Have an estimate made of the cost of laying water pipes to a more convenient point in the camp and I will refer the question to the Quartermaster-General. As I said at the camp I wish an estimate made of the cost of a bake-house before I order its construction. I have referred the matter of moving the fence, repairing the barracks &c., to the Quartermaster-General. This work too will not be necessary if there is to be a general exchange of prisoners.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Detroit, July 12, 1862.

Captain H. W. FREEDLEY,

Eighth Infantry, U. S. Army, Springfield, Ill.

CAPTAIN; Your report of the 8th is received. I inclose herewith the orders* of the War Department giving me authority to regulate the matter of the saving of rations and the regulations* which I have issued in virtue of this authority. Please furnish Captain Edwards, assistant commissary of subsistence, with a copy of each, and if he refuses to be governed by them desire him to put it in writing and report to me. The contract which you sent me in the first paragraph leaves it at the option of the Government whether to receive the rations on the provision return or in bulk. Private understanding has no force. Please say to the commanding officer, Major Fonda, that I direct the prisoners' rations to be received in bulk hereafter. The difference between what is drawn and what is due will of course be what the commissary will pay for. The Army Regulations and recent orders provide for the purchase of surplus rations. No further fencing can be erected without authority from the Quartermaster-General. Give me the length of the

---------------

*See pp. 30, 152

---------------