HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
August 3, 1862.

General R. E. LEE,

Commanding Department of Norther Virginia.

GENERAL: Brigadier General L. Thomas, U. S. Army, has arrived here as agent on the part of the United States for the exchange of prisoners. The steamers with the prisoners for delivery to your agent at Aiken's, some 3,000 in number, will arrive up the river in the course of to-morrow, Monday. General Thomas proposes to meet Mr. Robert Ould, agent on your part, at 12 m. to-morrow at Aiken's. I have to request that Mr. Ould be informed of this and hope that he may meet General Thomas at the time and place indicated. General Thomas will, however, await Mr. Ould's arrival at Aiken's.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

[GEO. B. McCLELLAN,]

Major-General, Commanding.

WHEELING, August 3, [1862].

Honorable H. C. WOLCOTT,

Assistant Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.

SIR: I beg leave to call your attention to the cases of the following prisoners now in my custody: H. C. Rollins, Greenbier County, Va. ; Matthew Corbitt, Upshur County, Va. ; JNO s. Conrad, Braxton County, Va. ; Walter Cool, Webster County, VA. ; Fred. Chewning, Braxton County, Va.

These persons were tried as guerrillas by a military commission which assembled early in June last, by order of Major General J. C. Fremont, commanding military department at Clarksburg, Va.

Agreeable to the proclamation of the President of the United States that the proceedings of all military commissions wherein the penalty of death was recorded should be referred directly to him I am informed that the record of the military commission at Clarksburg, Va., was forwarded by the judge-advocate to General Kelley, commanding Railroad District, by him to Major-General Fremont and subsequently to the President.

I have confined the above-named prisoners in the jail of this city for greater security, and as some time has elapsed since they were tried as stated deem it my duty to recall it to the notice of the War Department directly.

If the proceedings of the military commission have not been approved by the President I would respectfully ask for special instructions in the case of these prisoners.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOSEPH DARR, JR.,

Major and Provost-Marshal.

JACKSON, TENN., August 3, 1862.

Mr. PRESIDENT:

Believing as I do that our cause has been much damaged by the confinement of prisoners I cannot resist the inclination to urge on you the necessity for at once paroling all the rank and file now held by us as prisoners of war, especially those hailing from Tennessee and Kentucky. If paroled they will at once disperse to their several homes and