General that he will be dropped unless he feeds and shelters the prisoners and explains his failure heretofore to do so. Order commissary at Lynchburg to furnish rations on the requisition of Colonel Gobbs' quartermaster for prisoners.

G. W. R.

ATLANTA, June 18, 1862.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States of America.

SIR: We are the survivors* of the party that took the engine at Big Shanty on the 12th of April last. Our commander, Andrews, and seven of our comrades have been executed. We all (with the exception of Andrews) were regularly detailed from our regiments in perfect ignorance of where we were going and what we were to do. We were ordered to obey Andrews, and everything we did was done by his orders, he only telling his plans when he wished us to execute them. In this we are no more to blame than any Northern soldier, for any one of them in our circumstances would have been obliged to do just as we did. For fuller details we refer to the evidence in the cases that have ben tried. No real harm was done, and as far as thought and intention is concerned we are perfectly innocent. Oh, it is hard to die a disgraceful and ignominious death; to leave our wives, our children, our brothers and sisters and parents without any consolation. Give this matter your most kind and merciful consideration. Give us that mercy you yourself hope to receive from the Judge of all. We will all take an oath not to fight or do anything against the Confederacy. If this cannot be done at least spare our lives until the war is closed, if we have to remain in prison until that time.

Wilson [W.] Brown, Company F, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; William Bensindger, Company G, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; Elihu H. Mason, company K, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; John A. Wilson, Company C, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; John R. Porter, Company G, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; Mark Wood, Company C, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; Robert Buffum, company H, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; William Knight, Company E, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteers; William Pittenger, Company G, Second Ohio Volunteers; Daniel A. Dorsey, Company H, Thirty-third Ohio Volunteers; Jacob Parrott, Company K, Thirty-third Ohio Volunteers; William [H.] Reddick, Company B, Thirty-third Ohio Volunteers; M. J. Hawkins, Company A, Thirty-third Ohio Volunteers.

ORDNANCE OFFICE, Richmond, June 19, 1862.

Honorable G. W. RANDOLPH, Secretary of War.

SIR: I am requested by Major M. Lewis Clark, C. S. Army, to bring to your notice the capture of Mr. Broadwell whilst on duty in Missouri recovering lead which had been stored near the lead mines in Mis-

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*See Series I, Vol. X, Part I, p. 630 et seq. for Railroad Raid into Georgia.

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