to the usages of civilized people, and that the surgeons to whose care they are intrusted be treated not as felons but in accordance with the precedents which have been established and which you publish in all your papers as the law of the land. If we cannot be fed in accordance usages of war, in other words if you have not the material wherewith to feed us so as to keep us from starvation, I feel assured that you elevated sense of humanity will assist us to reach our own lines where we can be attended to. I have seen and attended your sick and wounded at New York, Philadelphia, Fortress Monroe and in this hospital, and have never seen any distinction made between them and our own. Now with the insufficient nourishment supplied us, our own funds failing, what are we to do? I leave the answer to your impulses of humanity and ask you in the name of the common obligations due from man to man that you interpose your dictum and change the status of our condition.

I am, respectfully, &c.,

JOHN SWINSBURNE,

Surgeon in Charge.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., July 24, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following as the approximate number of prisoners of war held at the several prison stations:

Fort Warren, Boston. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Fort Delaware, Del. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000

Fort McHenry, Md. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Fort Monroe, Va. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000

Depot at Sandusky, Ohio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,300

Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500

Camp Morton, Indianapolis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000

Camp Douglas, Chicago. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,800

Camp Butler, Springfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000

Military prison, Alton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Military prison, Saint Louis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

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20,500

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

HEADQUARTERS, Camp Douglas, Chicago, July 24, 1862.

Colonel HOFFMAN,
Commissary-General of Prisoners, Detroit, Mich.

COLONEL: I regret to inform you that the inclosed list* of prisoners are reported to have escaped at the respective dates, twenty-one last night. The particulars of last night's escape are: At 9 o'clock a musket was fired by the sentinel on post Numbers 57, and a call for the guard made. Other musket shots were soon heard, and the soldiers, in and outside of camp were instantly on the alert. The facts proved to be that a body of prisoners made a rush at the fence on his, Numbers 57's, beat with three ladders constructed rudely of boards with cleats nailed upon them. The sentinels in the neighborhood fired on them and gave the alarm. A number, however, escaped at that point and have not been

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* Not found.

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