not to be denied that the patience of the Confederate Government is becoming threadbare. It has in vain resorted to every resource recognized by civilized warfare in retaliation of such outrages, but with no avail except in individual cases. It has failed to elicit any disavowal of the principle on which the Federal Government acts, and it is to be apprehended that as a natural result a system of retaliation in kind will be resorted to. It will rest chiefly with the Federal Government to decide hereafter the character which the contest shall assume.

These acts of retaliation upon individuals, together with the indignities to our clergy at different periods and more recently in a Southern city are steeling the hearts and nerving the arms of our people to the last degree of desperation. Union-social association with a people guilty of such acts - is henceforth an impossibility. Destitution, the prison - death itself - is preferable.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

BRAXTON BRAGG,

General, Commanding.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
Cincinnati, December 9, 1862.

Respectfully referred to the assistant adjutant-general, Headquarters of the Army, for the information of the General-in-Chief. The within is in reply to my letter of the 23rd ultimo* to General Bragg relative to the exchange of A. H. Townly, a citizen of Campbell County, Ky., captured by a party of General Kirby Smith's command in September last, and reported to be held as a hostage for one L. C. Norman, of Boone County, Ky., and now a prisoner of the United States.

The matter of their exchange was referred to me to negotiate by the commissary-general of prisoners, Colonel Hoffman.

H. G. WRIGHT,

Major-General, Commanding.

JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL'S OFFICE, December 1, 1862.

On the application of Captain Benjamin P. Walker, late assistant commissary of subsistence, to be restored to the service from which he was recently dismissed by order of the President:

The grounds on which this officer was dismissed are in the order stated to be "habitual absence from his post and gross and willful neglect to duty. " These charges rest upon a report made to Colonel Hoffman, Third Infantry, U. S. Army, commissary-general of prisoners, by Captain H. M. Lazelle, Eighth Infantry, U. S. Army, under date of 7th of August, 1862, and on a letter addressed to the latter on the 27th of July, 1862, by Colonel C. W. B. Allison, temporarily commanding at Camp Chase. The report goes very much in detail and professes to be the result of an examination made into the administration of Captain Walker at Camp Chase. Captain Lazelle seems to have found nothing to commend but very much to condemn. The points which he presents against Captain Walker are principally:

1. Continual absence without leave from his post.

2. Inefficiency or unfaithfulness in receiving from the contractors and issuing to the troops inferior provisions.

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* Omitted.

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