HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Corinth, October 16, 1862.

Major General STERLING PRICE, or

OFFICER COMMANDING CONFEDERATE FORCES.

SIR: I send this letter under flag of truce by Lieutenant-Colonel Ducat, Captains Goddard and Lyford of my staff.

1. I desire to call your attention to the practice which I am credibly informed exists at some of the posts of your army of detailing paroled prisoners sent hence within the Confederate lines for exchange as provost-guards and for other services in garrison of military nature. This is a violation of the conditions of the parole which I feel assured is not sanctioned by lawful authority, and I respectfully ask official assurance thereof and that prompt orders to arrest and instructions be given to prevent the practice in future.

2. I am credibly informed that neither full nor adequate rations are given to our prisoners of war in your garrisons, and they are confined with negroes and every promiscuous character. Such a practice is inhuman, unsoldierly and I cannot believe sanctioned by your authority. I beg to receive your official assurance thereof and that you will prohibit such conduct and order in future our prisoners to be fed and hosed (as we do yours taken by us) properly.

3. I respectfully ask, if it be practicable, that your send in or release the prisoner now held by your authorities named in the accompanying lists, for which we will send or release and equal number of your choice according to the rules laid down in the cartel of exchange agreed upon by General Hill and Dix.

4. I desire personally to express my gratification at the reports from prisoners of your regular army that you condemn the barbarous and demoralizing practice of encouraging partisan or guerrilla warfare, where by specious means bands of armed men are let loose upon the country with the instincts and the means for the exercise of lawless power and with few if any of the restraints of military rule. Such troops demoralize and desolate a country and without decisive measures reduce their adversaries to the necessity of treating its harmless inhabitants with the same rigor as if their houses were little forts and themselves in a beleaguered city. I trust the abhorrence and detestation with which I view the cruel consequences of raising and encouraging such a mosquito army is fully shared in by yourself and all honorable officers in the Confederate service, and that you agree with me in this connection that no good cause can be great cause long sustained by such lawless and uncivilized means. War is horrible enough without paining its ugly front with bloody and disgusting disfigurements of savagery. I shall be much pleased to convey assurances of your sentiments on this matter to all concerned

5. I beg to state the better accommodation of the sick and wounded Confederate prisoners I have sent them to Iuka and have detailed some able-bodied prisoners to police the garrison. We supply them with good rations and medical stores and to the medical attendants what is needful. We do not wish to occupy Iuka with a garrison, but desire it and the road to it to be considered within our lines and that your troops be forbidden to enter or meddle with it until it shall be practicable for you to take care of the hospitals and we be notified and consent to the occupation of the place by Confederate forces. This has been rendered necessary by the coming of squads of Roddey's or other irregular