20th* November I informed you that orders had been issued and were being executed to send all the prisoners at the West belonging to irregular organizations to Vicksburg for exchange. The same orders are intended to apply to those in the department of General Butler. The political prisoners at Forts Warren and Lafayette and the Old Capitol Prison at Washington have with a few exceptions been unconditionally released. These orders will show you the policy of the United States Government and will probably cover points 2 and 3 in your official communication of the 29th November. In view of these release I hope you will no longer hesitate to reciprocate by ordering the release of the Robinsons, father, son and son-in-law, and all others similarly confined. I send you to-day in addition to prisoners of war Mr. S. H. Lyon, who goes to Richmond in exchange for Alfred Schleg, released on condition to procure this exchange. I intend to meet you in a few days. Please send me by Captain Mulford a list of persons wishing to come via flag of through our lines. Within a few days a number of persons, mostly women and children, will apply to be sent to City Point. Will they be permitted to land at that place? They belong at the South.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

HEADQUARTERS, Fort Monroe, Va., December 3, 1862.

Honorable ROBERT OULD, Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

SIR: Since I wrote you this morning information has been given me that some thirty of forty citizens of Pennsylvania, non-combatants, were seized by order of General Stuart in his late incursion into Pennsylvania and Maryland and were conveyed to Richmond. This is so clearly in contravention of the positions you have laid down that I need only mention the fact t you to insure their immediate delivery to Captain Mulford, in charge of the flag of truce.

Your obedient servant,
WM. H. LUDLOW,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners.

OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

Saint Louis, Mo., December 3, 1862.

Brigadier General LEWIS MERRILL,

Headquarters District of Northeast Missouri, Warrenton, Mo.

GENERAL: A considerable number of citizens from the interior of the State - and amongst them are several undoubted Union men who have suffered in the cause - have made urgent application to me to give a hearing to the prisoners who have been captured and sent down by you as sentenced to imprisonment for the war. It is urged upon me that amongst those prisoners will be found a considerable number of young men whose fathers and connections are true Union men who never before took up arms and who went off most indiscreetly under the excitement produced by the enrolling orders, and that they are now willing to give their adhesion to the side of the Government

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* See Vol. IV, this Series, p. 738.

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