your absence and endeavor to assist in making the necessary arrangements.

* * * *

Respectfully and truly, yours,

G. W. SMITH,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS, Richmond, Va., November 12, 1862.

Major General S. G. FRENCH,
Commanding Department of North Carolina, Petersburg, Va.

GENERAL: A dispatch was sent you this morning informing you that the point for landing paroled prisoners of war had been changed from Aiken's to City Point. The major-general commanding directs me to say that he desires you to take measures without delay to provide for the reception of the prisoners at the Point as soon as possible. It will be necessary to construct a wharf at the landing. Meantime some other expedient must be used for that purpose, as the first boat will probably arrive on Saturday. Inasmuch as these boats arrive without notice it will be necessary to establish a camp at the Point for their accommodation until cars can be sent to convey them to Petersburg with an officer, to be empowered by Mr. Ould to receipt for the prisoners, and with authority to control the camp, with a surgeon and medical stores and a depot of commissary and quartermaster's stores. A large proportion of the prisoners will arrive sick or wounded, so that houses at or near the Point should be procured for their shelter. The guard furnished should number at least seventy-five men, that number being necessary to prevent the prisoners from straggling into the country. The major-general commanding directs that a camp be also established in the vicinity of Petersburg with a competent officer in command to which the paroled prisoners will be removed as soon as possible after they have landed and provided for and securely guarded until they are exchanged. The camp of paroled prisoners at this point has given more annoyance and trouble than any other of the many charges upon the command in Richmond, and you will be fortunate and deserve unusually if you succeed where we have well-night failed in managing it satisfactorily. The men arrive full of the idea of deserving unusual privileges because of their capture and will at once besiege your officer for furlough, pleading the unusual merit of their position, and upon being refused, as they must be in every instance except when furnishing a certificate of disability, they become exceedingly unruly, mutinous and difficult of management. You will find it necessary to employ a large guard, therefore, and forbid their entering the town except in limited numbers daily. The prisoners who are sick or wounded should be provided for in a hospital, which should be set apart for that purpose, properly guarded. It may now and then occur that a prisoner will bring an infectious or contagious disease into our lines, and provisions must be made to guard against and dispose of such cases promptly. Mr. Ould, the commissioner, will visit Petersburg and the Point to-morrow. Whatever may be necessary for his own and the accommodation of the Federal commissioner the major-general commanding desires you to provide promptly, and whatever suggestions and recommendations Mr. Ould may have to make he wishes to entertain favorably. Your prompt, earnest and most diligent attention to this matter the major-general commanding directs me to ask, suggesting, in the interest of humanity