persons were arrested upon charges of disloyalty by the military commander of the Confederate Army, then at Fredericksburg, and were sent to Richmond, viz: Charles Williams, a resident of Fredericksburg, Moses Morrison, Thomas Morrison and Peter Couse, residents of Spotsylvania County. These persons we learn have for some time past been in confinement at Salisbury, N. C. The following-named citizens of Fredericksburg have been arrested and placed in confinement at Washington under an order of the Secretary of War of the United States to be held as hostages for the release by the Confederate States of the four prisoners aforenamed, viz, Messrs. Thomas S. Barton, Charles C. Wellford, Beverly T. Gill and Thomas F. Knox, who were arrested on the 22nd of July last; Messrs. James H. Bradley and James McGuire, who were arrested on or about the 26th of July last, and the Rev. William S. Broaddus, who was arrested on or about the 29th of July last. These citizens have been kept in confinement at Washington since the date of their several arrests, except Mr. Barton, who was discharged on parole to remain in Baltimore because of infirm health. On the 13th of the present mouth Messrs. Montgomery Slaughter (mayor of Fredericksburg), John Coakley, Michael Ames, John F. Scott, John J. Berry, John H. Roberts, James Cooke, William H. Norton, Lewis Wrenn, George H. C. Rowe, Benjamin Temple and Abraham Cox, citizens of Fredericksburg, were arrested under a like order from Washington, and have been committed to prison in that city. The latter order declared that they would be held as hostages for the four persons first named herein and for three other persons who were held as prisoners by the Confederate Government, viz, Burnham Wardwell, A. M. Pickett and Squire Ralston. The nineteen persons thus arrested as hostages are among our oldest and most esteemed citizens. Some of them are in advanced age and in very infirm health. We ask leave to submit to the consideration of Your Excellency the following facts and suggestions: Among the seven persons so stated as held in custody by the Confederate States four are well known to the people of Fredericksburg, viz, Thomas and Moses Morrison, Peter Couse and Charles Williams. The Messrs. Morrison emigrated some five or six years past from Delaware and bought lands in Spotsylvania County on which they resided at the time of their arrest. They were reputed as honest, industrious and inoffensive men. When the war occurred they continued at their homes and neither gave offense to nor aroused the suspicions of their neighbors until shortly before their arrest, when expressed disloyal sentiments. When they were arrested the prevailing judgment of this community was that the step was an unwise and harsh one, the general conviction of those who had known them well being that they would not prove in any respect enemies of the Confederate cause. In reference to Peter Couse, he had emigrated to Spotsylvania County from Pennsylvania some fifteen years past. It was alleged that he was making his arrangements to remove back to Pennsylvania at the time of his arrest. He had maintained a character in his neighborhood for honesty, industry and general good conduct, and many of the more intelligent of his neighbors expressed their belief that he would not attempt any injury to the Confederate cause and that no consideration of public policy required his arrest.

In reference to the case of Charles Williams, he had lived in Fredericksburg from his birth; was a man who actually held or affected to hold opinions opposed to the common judgment of the community on most topics, especially those of religious, social or political import; was prone to controversial talk on such subjects; assumed oddity and