Never having heard of those companies I preferred to decline to receive them until I could ascertain if there were any such, and have sought the information from the proper source. If you are not disposed to construe my letter of yesterday properly I state to you here that I neither expressed nor intended to express to you that there were no such companies in the C. S. service. It is probable there are such and at the proper time your Government shall be informed of it.

The following is an extract from your letter, viz:

I am glad to find, general, that you desire an example to be made which will hereafter be a warning to marauders who commit murder and robbery under the pretext of war.

A military commission will at once assemble to determine upon the guilt or innocence of these parties, and it is proper that I should inform you that your letter will be submitted to the commission as proving that "the eighty-six persons" whom you decline to recognize as prisoners of war are mere outlaws and as such must be treated.

I cannot believe that on so flimsy a pretext and so manifest a distortion of my words and with the full knowledge of what must inevitably result you meditate any such action against these men. General, when you threaten you offer an insult.

Our official intercourse, general, has been such as to have induced me to believe that you were incapable to tendering unprovoked so offensive a letter as that which I unsuspectingly received to-day. I believe that upon reflection you will withdraw it.

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

C. L. STEVENSON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Detroit, Mich., September 13, 1862.

General L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.

GENERAL: Prisoners of war belonging to the Confederate Army continue to be sent to Camp Chase, though provision is made in the cartel as I have seen it published in the papers for their immediate release on parole. I have called the attention of General Wright to this matter that he may take such steps as he may think proper. I beg again to call your attention to the subject of political prisoners confined at Sandusky who claim to be loyal Union men and assert that the charges against them are unfounded or frivolous. These cases should be acted on at once and the innocent set free. All I believe are willing to take the oath of allegiance and give bond for good conduct.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Detroit, Mich., September 13, 1862.

General H. G. WRIGHT,

Commanding Department of the Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio.

GENERAL: By the terms of the cartel as I have seen it published in the papers all prisoners of war belonging to the Confederate Army are