[Indorsement.]

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, October 29, 1862.

Respectfully referred to Colonel Hoffman, commissary-general of prisoners, with a copy of instructions to Colonel Loomis to send the exchanged prisoners named within to Camp Butler, Springfield, Ill.

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Iowa City, Iowa, October 16, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.

SIR: Government Kirdwood directs me to again call your attention to the Iowa soldiers taken prisoners by the rebels at the battle of Shiloh, afterwards released on parole, now at Benton Barracks, Saint Louis, Mo. All the rebel prisoners taken at Donelson, Shiloh and Island Numbers 10, in large part by Iowa troops, have been returned to the rebels, but no Iowa man received in exchange. Our people know this and are greatly dissatisfied and feel that the Government is not treating our troops fairly, and will so feel until they have a sufficient reason for this fact. Will you inform me why it is that no Iowa man is exchanged?

Respectfully,

N. H. BRAINBARD,

Military Secretary to Governor Kirdwood.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST DIVISION,
Memphis, October 17, 1862.

Major General T. C. HINDMAN,

Commanding Confederate Forces, Little Rock, Ark.

SIR: I had the honor to write you on the 28th ultimo in partial answer to your communication of the 23rd ultimo, and now inclose you General Curtis' full reply* to the matters contained in yours. It should not be that men of enlarged intelligence should make civil war more desperate that it is sure to be made by the acts of a class of soldiers who all their lives have been used to the largest amount of liberty to do their will, good and bad. You know full well that on your side guerrillas or partisan rangers commit acts which you would not sanction, and that small detachment of our men commit acts of individual revenge, leaving no evidence or trace whereby we can fix the responsibility. Instead of yielding to this tendency we ought gradually to improve discipline so that each general in command can trace all acts then assume the full responsibility. If we allow the passions of our men to get full command then indeed will this war become a reproach to the names of liberty and civilization. No later than yesterday some guerrillas in the state of Arkansas, near Needham's Cut-off, fired 12-pounder howitzer shells at the steam-boats Continental and J. H. Dickey, neither of which had on board a single soldier, expect a reserve guard, or any Government stores. Both were loaded with goods for the use of the people of West Tennessee, who come to Memphis for the articles they deem necessary for the lives and comfort of their families, as also for the use of the inhabitants of Memphis itself. Now we present the anomalous fact that in Memphis reside the

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* Omitted here; Curtis to Hindman (two letters), October 10, p. 609.

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