aware. That officer, while he commanded their respect, made himself felt and feared. Under his administration of affairs such a thing as a 'showing of teeth" was out of the question. He allowed the prisoners to go the full length of their privileges and promptly and surely punished the slightest infraction or abuse thereof. The present commandant we have every reason to believe is neither respected nor feared by the prisoners. One of his first acts upon assuming command of the camp was a ridiculous search of the prisoners for weapons; a tacit a jack-knife rebellion against his authority. We all know how that search resulted, but the public has not been told that even miniatures, lockets, rings, keepsakes, and tobacco were confiscated in lieu of murderous weapons. This action embittered the prisoners and aroused acts were resorted to, such as prohibiting peddlers of vegetables, milk, &c., from the camp. Of this last we do not speak complainingly, provided the prisoners are ruled with an iron hand. We believe too much favor has been shown the fat rascals in view of the horrible and brutal treatment bestowed upon our soldiers in Southern prisons. But we do insist that there is a palpable maladministration of affairs at Camp Douglas if there is any dependence to be placed on the assertions of those who claim to know whereof they speak. Eight thousand resolute and well-fed prisoners, smarting under petty grievances and rendered sullen by long confinement, could not in a state of revolt be held by 1,600 raw recruits, no matter how able a commandant they had over them. It would be no slight thing to find this body of desperate men suddenly let loose upon society. The country through which they bent their way would be devastated by pillage, incendiarism rapine and all the horrors which can be imagined. These are the risks, he imminent risks, which stare us in the face. We may dream on yet awhile longer in fancied or affected nonchalance but we shall be awakened with a start by and by.

COLUMBUS, OHIO, July 13, 1862

Colonel W. HOFFMAN,

Commissary-General of Prisoners, Detroit, Mich.

COLONEL; In compliance with your instructions I have the honor briefly to report the condition in which I found Camp Chase and the result and progress thus far of my endeavor to patiently and faithfully fulfill the most difficult and delicate tasks which you could have imposed upon me. If the statement demonstrates that I have gone beyond your special orders and the particular authority delegated to me, I believe it will at the same time appear that whenever I have assumed so to act it has been with the sole desire to fully represent your own views and to impress upon those with whom I came officially in contact the imperative necessity of prompt and energetic action in executing carefully important measures admitting of no delay, while it will at the same time be plain that my intercourse has been with parties clothed with both military and civil power, and yet while vain of its exercise possessing the most astonishing ignorance of the most ordinary practical military functions.

At the earliest moment I procured an interview with Major Darr, to whom I fully and carefully detailed your wishes as I conceive them to exist and received from him particular accounts and statements of matters in his department of which I have memoranda and which