Prompt obedience to orders and regulations must be exacted, and for any violation of orders you will fix a punishment at your own discretion.

General Orders, No. 193, herewith inclosed,* directs the release of two classes of prisoners, and it is left to your direction to decide who are to be released under it. If there are any who would be released under the first paragraph you must ascertain from the Governor of the State they come from it the draft or quota has been furnished. The second paragraph covers all cases of persons sent from the border States by the Governor or military commander -Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Washington, D. C., December 12, 1862.

Lieutenant Colonel F. A. DICK,

Provost-Marshal-General, Saint Louis, Mo.

COLONEL: In the case of J. J. Clarkson, who claims to be a colonel in the Confederate Army, I have to reply to the inquiries contained in your letter of the 3rd instant that inasmuch as he has no commission from the rebel Government a decision of the question will not be made until he is claimed as an officer of that Government. Prisoners of war held by you will not hereafter be turned over to any civil authority except by order of the War Department. The prisoners you refer to as having been taken with or without arms in the central and northern parts of Missouri while on their way to join the rebel army will be held as political prisoners not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, and you will as often as may be necessary furnish to this office rolls of all captures of this character, giving on the rolls all necessary particulars of time, place, &c. Prisoners of war will not be released on taking the oath of allegiance except by authority of the War Department. Deserters from the enemy will not be held as prisoners of war, but it must be clearly established that they are deserters, and to insure their loyalty the oath of allegiance should be administered to them. When prisoners are sent to you without rolls if possible them until rolls are prepared before they are sent to Alton. When you have none of the particulars of the capture let that be stated on the rolls.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

HDQRS. 2nd Brigadier, 1ST DIV., ARMY OF THE FRONTIER, Camp nea Cane Hill, December 12, 1862.

The PRINCIPAL SURGEON, C. S. Army,
Cane Hill or Boonsborough.

SIR: I am instructed by the general commanding the U. S. forces in this vicinity to require the following: That you furnish me with a complete list of your wounded and attendants; that they be kept close about the hospitals and not allowed to straggle about town or our camps. Under no pretext will any of them attempt to pass the lines.

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*Omitted here; see Vol. IV, this Series, p. 746.

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