fully recommend that prisoners from his command captured by our forces be not exchanged but that they be held as hostages for the protection of our people against the outrages which he is reported to be committing.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General.

VICKSBURG, January 10, 1863.

Colonel WADDY:

Under date of 6th instant I was informed by Assistant Adjutant-General B. S. Ewell, from Chattanooga, that 3,500 Federal prisoners are on their way here. Instructions regarding them are asked for.

M. L. SMITH,

Major-General.

JACKSON, MISS., January 10, 1863.

General J. C. PEMBERTON:

Thirty-five hundred Federal prisoners are on their way here from Bragg's army. What shall I do with them?

J. R. WADDY,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS FIRST DISTRICT, DEPT. OF MISS AND EAST LA., Numbers 2.
Jackson, Miss., January 11, 1863.

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II. The command of that portion of the district recently embraced within and now separated from the First Military District, as well as the city of Jackson, is hereby relinquished to Brigadier-General Adams, who has been appointed to the command.

III. The office of commissioner of exchanged and paroled prisoners is also turned over to Brigadier-General Adams.

By order of Brigadier-General Ruggles:

R. M. HOOE,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

Extract from President's Message, January 12, 1863.

To the SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES:

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The public journals of the North have been received containing a proclamation dated on the first day of the present month signed by the President of the United States in which he orders and declares all slaves within ten States of the Confederacy to be free, except such as are found in certain districts now occupied in part by the armed forces of the enemy.

We may well leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellowmen of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented