HDQRS. FIRST DIVISION, DEPT. OF EAST TENNESSEE, August 10, 1862.

Brigadier General G. W. MORGAN,
Commanding U. S. Forces at Cumberland Gap.

GENERAL: Your communication of yesterday* in reply to my proposition for exchange of prisoners has been received.

As you had previously addressed a communication on the subject to Major General E. Kirby Smith, commanding Department of East Tennessee, it is proper that I should wait his action thereon; otherwise it would give it is proper that I should wait his action thereon; otherwise it would give me great pleasure to make an equitable exchange of prisoners to-day.

I have the honor to be, general, with great respect, your obedient servant,

C. L. STEVENSON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

OFFICER COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Detroit, Mich., August 10, 1862.

Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington.

SIR: The jurisdiction of the provost-marshal at Wheeling, Major Joseph Darr, Jr., is not well defined, and I have respectfully to request that in all posts in Western Virginia lying within the Mountain Department as it was, including the district commanded by Generals Kelley and Cox, the control of the prisoners of war and political prisoners be placed in the hands of the provost-marshal at Wheeling.

Returns and rolls of a prisoners at these several stations will be consolidated by him and furnished to the commissary-general of prisoners, and from Wheeling all prisoners will be sent to the general depot from time to time as may be found necessary. This is done now as far as his authority extends. There is a provost-marshal at Saint Louis for Missouri and one at Louisville for Kentucky. From these points prisoners are sent to the nearest prison stations in Ohio or Illinois.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Detroit, Mich., August 10, 1862.

Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington.

SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith+ a report by Captain Lazelle, Eight Infantry, under my orders, of an examination into the management of the subsistence department at Camp Chase so far as the prisoners of war are concerned, and beg to call your particular attention to it.

From this report in appears that great frauds have been practiced on the Government and on the prisoners by both the commissary and the contractor. Either willfully or through neglect stores have been received

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*Not found; Morgan's letters in this correspondence nearly all missing.

+Omitted here; Lazelle to Hoffman, p. 577.

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24 R R-SERIES II, VOL IV