paroled prisoner of war, such parole is hereby revoked and Captain Seymour is to be kept at Fort Jackson as a prisoner of war.

By order of Major-General Butler:

R. S. DAVIS,

Captain and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DISTRICT,
Little Rock, Ark., July 31, 1862.

Major General S. R. CURTIS, Commanding U. S. Forces, Helena, Ark.

GENERAL: I send to your lines under flag of truce a number of prisoners of whom a list* is inclosed. You will please indorse your receipt thereon and return the same.

I have directed that prisoners held by my officers at other points be sent in the same way to the nearest Federal commander. The same course will be adopted by me as to prisoners sent to my lines from your army.

It is a mistake to rank Captain Joseph Fry as "colonel. " We have no officers of that title in our Navy. If any communication from me found with him when captured has that address it was the mistake of a clerk or telegraphic operator. It is not even correct to style him "captain," except that the ordinary usages in similar cases justify it. His true rank is that of first lieutenant, C. S. Navy. He commanded the gunboat Maurepas and hence derived the title of captain without the rank. I propose the exchange of your Captain Joseph Indest, Third Regiment Missouri Infantry, for Lieutenant Fry, which is in exact accordance with the scale of exchanges in such cases as I understand.

To effect this exchange Captain Joseph Indest is paroled for twenty days from the time when he reaches your lines. If at the end of that time Lieutenant Fry is not released and granted safe conduct to me Captain Indest is to return himself as a prisoner.

I beg again to call your attention to the excess of prisoners released by General Van Dorn, as he thinks, over the number released by you, and ask that you make up the deficit, if any.

Your attention is also called to the reports which come tome directly and from innumerable sources of great atrocities committed by your troops on their march to Helena and since, such as the burning of houses, robbing women and children of their clothing, bedding and last pound of meat and breadstuffs; taking medicines from planters and practicing physicians; in some cases offering person females even to the horrible extent of ravishing them.

These are crimes against humanity and civilization. If you doubt that they have been perpetrated I propose to you a joint commission to proceed under flag of truce to places which I will indicate and thereby get all the facts.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. C. HINDMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF SOUTHERN MISSOURI,
Helena, Ark., August 5, 1862.

Respectfully referred to department headquarters by the hands of Captain Indest. The flag-of-truce bearer has been sent home without

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* Omitted.

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