Annapolis under the exclusive command of Lieutenant-Colonel Sangster, Forty-seventh New York Volunteers, may be issued from your headquarters, and that the guards for duty at the camp from the Sixty-seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers may be recognized while thus employed as subject to the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Sangster and not to those of Colonel Staunton.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Washington, D. C., December 13, 1862.

Major General H. G. WRIGHT,

Commanding Department of the Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio.

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 6th instant* with the inclosed letter from General John W. Finnell, adjutant-general of Kentucky volunteers, and in reply I am directed by the Secretary of War to say that all military organizations engaged in service if captured before being mustered in are entitled to the same consideration as if the muster had been perfected, and the home guards and recruits to whom you refer in order that they may receive pay and be exchanged should at once repair to Camp Wallace as required by General Orders, No. 72, of 28th of June. It is presumed that when these troops entered the service they were enrolled, so that there can be no doubt where they belong. Rolls will be prepared at Camp Wallace of these men which will be forwarded through this office to the agent for exchange of prisoners, and on these rolls he will negotiate their exchange. The exchanges thus far of prisoners taken at Munfordville cover only the Indiana regiments.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Washington, D. C., December 13, 1862.

Lieutenant Colonel F. A. DICK,

Provost-Marshal-General, Saint Louis, Mo.

COLONEL: Your letter of the 8th is received and in reply I have to say that the explanations you give of the matters referred to in my letter of the 4th instant are quite satisfactory.

Hereafter when your prisons are likely to become too much crowded give me timely notice, that prisoners may be transferred from Alton to Sandusky to make room for those held in Saint Louis. Such a state of things as you represent should never occur again if it is possible to avoid it, and there should be always ample room to spare in at least one of your prisons. Endeavor to systematize your calls for the release of prisoners from Alton so that they may be prepared for as much as twice or three times a week. The matter of the latter part of your letter is covered by mine of the 12th instant.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. HOFFMAN,

Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

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*See p. 33.

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