HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF TEXAS,
San Antonio, August 22, 1862.

SERGEANT COMMANDING,

Detachment Major Taylor's Battalion.

SIR: You will report to the commanding officer of the post, who will deliver into your custody J. R. Ritchliff and W. P. M. Means, who have been sentenced by the military commission to be sent out of the country. On taking charge of these persons you will proceed with them without unnecessary delay to Ringgold Barracks, reporting with these instructions to the commanding officer, who is hereby directed to carry the sentence as above stated into effect, after which you will return, reporting at these headquarters. While you are held responsible for the safety of the prisoners and the execution of the sentence you are charged not to treat them with undue severity.

By order of Brigadier General P. O. Hebert:

C. M. MASON,

Captain and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

MILITARY PRISON, Alton, Ill., August 23, 1862.

I enlisted in the Missouri State Guard service on the 22nd of May, 1861. Was elected captain of Company A, Fifth Regiment, Third Division, and received commission on the 24th of May, 1861. Received orders from Henry Little, assistant adjutant-general, by order of General Price, to destroy the bridge on the North Missouri Railroad at Sturgeon or any other in the vicinity on the 13th of June, 1861, and to repair to Booneville immediately with company. I executed the said orders on the 15th of June, 1861. Was arrested on the 15th of April, 1862, in Boone County, and tried at Saint Louis on the 8th of May, 1862, by a military commission on the charge of violating the laws of war and specification destroying said road. I denied the charge but admitted the specification. I pledged jurisdiction and exhibited my commission and also the order for destroying the road, which was disregarded and retained by the committee, and sentenced to imprisonment during the remainder of the war. All of which is true. *

ABSALOM HICKS.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond, August 25, 1862.

Honorable G. W. RANDOLPH, Secretary of War.

SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith a letter from Adjutant-General Thomas, of the Federal Army, in explanation of the fact of supplies being sent on steamers taking prisoners of war to Aiken's.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBT. OULD,

Agent, &c.

[Inclosure.]

FORT MONROE, VA., August 16, 1862.

ROBERT OULD, Esq.

SIR: I have inquired into the fact of supplies being on board one of the steamers taking prisoners of war to Aiken's and find the following to be the facts:

On the arrival at this place of the prisoners of war from Forts Warren and Delaware they were transferred from the large sea steamers,

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*For case of Absalom Hicks, see Vol. I, this Series, p. 503.

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