the Government and are doing good and faithful service in the hospital without pay. Is the above action wrong in view of their small number and all the circumstances?

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. S. SMITH,

Major Twelfth Infantry.

SANDUSKY CITY, OHIO, August 22, 1862.

His Excellency EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

SIR: We have near Sandusky, on an island called Johnson's Island, a military prison where a certain number of Catholics are confined as prisoners of war. These poor misguided men would bear with resignation their well-deserved punishment if they only were allowed the consolation of a priest. As far as bodily comfort is concerned they are treated with a care which does honor to a noble people. Couldn't the same comfort be granted to their souls? It cannot be I am sure the intention of the Government which is now fighting for liberty to enslave the conscience of anybody. Prompted by these high considerations I humbly beg of Your Excellency to grant to the Catholic priests of Sandusky the permission of procuring to those poor men the consolations of their religion. The prison is under the command of Major Pierson.

Hoping a favorable answer, I am, of Your Excellency the most humble and most obedient servant,

L. MOLON,

Catholic Priest of Sandusky and appointed

Chaplain of the 123rd Ohio Regiment.

NEW YORK, August 23, 1862.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State, &c., Washington.

DEAR SIR: From the kindness you have shown me in giving your permission to visit Mr. Soule I feel it my duty to give you a candid statement of the result of that visit. In company with Judge Roselius and Doctor Cottman we called yesterday and found Mr. Soule apparently well but far from being so in body or mind, complaining of rheumatism from the effects of the dampness of the fort; but this he remarked was more endurable than the privations he had to undergo in being subjected to all the indignities of a common felon, deprived of the privilege of writing to his family, of taking exercise in the open air of the fort-in fact being confined to a cell and not the liberty of leaving it even to the water-closets without and escort of the guard. Upon the political questions of the day he observed that he had clung to the Union until the State seceded according to the State rights doctrine of the party to which he belonged, but said nothing disrespectful of the Government, and said if desired he would leave the country and pledge himself not to do anything in opposition to the Government either directly or indirectly; that when the Federal forces took New Orleans his mouth was sealed and he neither did nor said anything against the Federal authority. He was not conscious of having done anything to merit the very severe punishment that was meted out to him and was willing and ready to meet his accusers and stand his trial. He wishes to be put on parole, and pledged himself