Washington by William P. Wood. I also return the list* of prisoners brought on by Wood, numbering 145. Prisoners were selected from those in confinement here and sent off, numbering 62, leaving 83 to be drawn from Salisbury to make up the equivalent. Inclosed is the list,* marked A, of those sent off. It will be observed none of these men are citizens of the Confederate States. To complete the number of 145 it was, as above stated, necessary to draw from Salisbury to look to the condition of the prisoners. After his return a protracted and sometimes an unpleasant negotiation ensued in reference to the individual prisoners discharged from confinement. Three points were settled in these negotiations, subject to your approval:

1. All the prisoners discharged were to be of those who adhered to the Government of the United States.

2. All who thus adhered were to be sent out of the Confederacy as alien enemies and adherents of the Government of the United States and if such persons returned to any State in the Confederacy they were liable to be treated as alien enemies.

3. No citizen of any other State than Virginia was to be discharged in consequence of the discharge of a Virginia, but citizens of the United States might be discharged without reference to the place of their arrest.

The first two questions became very important because I thought one object to be obtained by the irregular mission of Wood was to obtain such pretext for interfering between the Government of the Confederate States and its citizens as would give them a plausible ground of alleging there were Union men here who desired their protection and to whom they were giving protection. To me it seemed the best and most obvious course to prevent this was to send away such prisoners as determined to remain citizens of the United States out of the limits of the Confederate States as alien enemies. This course was equivalent to banishment and would make the political status of these men one in which they could do us no harm. By permitting them to remain after they deliberately chose to adhere to the United States and had been looking for protection to that Government would leave bad citizens among us and perhaps fully as injurious as if they returned to the community.

On the third question, may of our citizens from Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina are imprisoned in the United States. I thought it right the citizens held from those States should be held as hostages for our citizens from those States. Governed by these considerations I made out with William P. Wood a list of 91 or 92 persons who were directed to be brought from Salisbury. Seventy-nine were brought and 12 remained. Those ordered to be brought on above the 83 were ordered to be exchanged for guerrillas and other prisoners. In making out this list I excluded all our citizens who (as far as I then was informed) had been charged with crimes against the laws of the Confederacy or States and against whom proof could be procured. I put on it citizens of the States of the United States who I believed were great scoundrels, but who could not be brought to justice in the Confederacy or any of the Confederate States. In making out this list difficulty was encountered from the fact that only citizens of Virginia and some of the States of the United States were included in it.

The recall of William P. Wood relieved me from further negotiations with him, but it seems to me that justice to the discharged citizens and

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*Not found.

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