WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, December 8, 1862.

Major General HORATIO G. WRIGHT,

Commanding Department of the Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio.

GENERAL: The Secretary of War directs me to transmit to you the inclosed copy* of a resolution adopted by the Senate on the 5th instant, and to instruct you to procure from General Boyle and from any officer in your command who has had or who has exercised the authority to make arrests within the State or Kentucky a list of the citizens of that State "who have been and who are now confined in the military prisons and camps of the United States outside of the limits of the said State, together with a statement of the charges against them, by whom made and by whose order the arrests were made. " You will also procure the like information from the commandants of military prisons within the limits of your department. It is important that the information should be transmitted to this Department at the earliest practicable moment.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

C. P. WOLCOTT,

Assistant Secretary of War.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
Cincinnati, December 12, 1862.

Respectfully referred to Colonel Burbank, Second Infantry, and military commander, Cincinnati, Ohio, who will furnish to these headquarters at the earliest practicable moment a list and accompanying statement furnishing the information called for in the within letter from the War Department and the accompanying resolution of the Senate adopted on the 5th instant.

By command of Major-General Wright:

W. P. ANDERSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
Cincinnati, Ohio, December 8, 1862.

Brigadier General G. GRANGER,

Commanding Army of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.

GENERAL: I return herewith the letter+ of Lieutenant-Colonel Sipes, military commander of Covington and Newport, dated the 1st instant, presenting the case of Captain T. M. Coombs, Fifth Regiment Kentucky Cavalry, in the Confederate Army, a paroled prisoner, bound to report himself as such within a specified time at Louisville to be sent to Vicksburg for exchange, and who was arrested before reporting on the charge of treason and confined in the Williamstown jail. Colonel Sipes deems this to be a case demanding the interposition of military authority for the release of the prisoner from jail and the restoration of his rights as a prisoner of war.

The Federal Government has so far recognized the belligerent rights of the so-called Confederate States as to enter into an agreement with the military authority of those States acknowledging the right of prisoners captured from them as prisoners of war and as entitled to exchange. So far then as the acts of individual engaged in a military capacity in the enemy's service are concerned he is not individually

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* Omitted here; see p. 27.

+ Not found.

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