for the greater security and health of the prisoners confined at the various prison camps within your department. I am directed by the commissary-general of prisoners to inform you that it is his desire that you concentrate so far as practicable all of the prisoners at Wheeling which are or may be in your department, thus avoiding the additional expense and trouble of such preparation at each camp. He further requests that you prepare for his examination a report as to what further arrangements are necessary to be made for the accommodation at that point of at least 300 prisoners. Report the number for which you at present have prison room and the facilities generally, [illegible] together with an estimate of the proposed expense of this. It is necessary that you immediately comply with these instructions, as Camp Chase has already its full complement.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. M. LAZELLE,

Captain, Eighth Infantry, U. S. Army.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Detroit, Mich., July 20, 1862.

Captain H. W. FREEDLEY,

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

CAPTAIN: Your letter of July 11 [18] in which you state that your orders have been fulfilled, as far as circumstances will permit, and your [request for] instructions to return to this point has been received. In reply I am directed by the commissary-general to inform you that you will remain at Camp Butler until all instructions which you may have received are completely put in force and carried out minutely in daily practice under your immediate supervision by the commanding officer at that place, and that they be so fully understood by him that further instructions to him from this office regarding the regulation of matters appertaining to the prisoners as detailed to you will be unnecessary, as it is not sufficient in these cases simply to give orders but to see them carefully executed. You are desired especially to attend to all forms of official papers and to see [that] the details relating to military prisoners and to the manner of reporting citizens are particularly attended to and in a proper manner. The commissary-general further directs the purchase by you of six Farmer's boilers, barrel sizes (40 gallons), of the new pattern. These are completely enveloped by the fire and set down into the heat as far as the upper flange in a similar manner that the heater of a common glue pot receives the inner vessel of fluid. He requests you to have them put into daily use and he expects as a result a corresponding economy of fuel. They will be purchased by the quartermaster, who will have them prepared, but he will suspend operations [as to] the use of the same for the present, as it is expected that they may be paid for by the prisoners' fund accumulating from the savings. This same plan will be adopted by the quartermaster in the purchase by the quartermaster of all articles for the use of the prisoners and those ordered by you to be purchased by him, as it is desirable that all such expenditures should be covered in this manner. All expenditures ordered by you will be made by the quartermaster in town, as the placing of money [in] the hands of inexperienced or irresponsible volunteer officers is, as far as possible, to be avoided.

Having particularly performed this duty you will proceed to Alton, Ill., and by conferring with Major Flint, the commanding officer at