E, A. Hitchcock to H. E. PAINE, 48 Bleecker Street, New York, February 17, 1865

Washington, D. C., February 17, 1865.

Respectfully returned to the Secretary of War. It is impossible to identify these parties on the records of this office unless their names can be given. W. HOFFMAN, Bot. Brig. Gen., U. S. Army, Commissary-General of Prisoners.

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 30, 1865. Hon, E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: In an address by General Butler, reported as having been recently made to the people of Lowell, Mass., he is represented to have said something which implies that he was in the successtul execution of the duty of exchange when he was stopped by an order, but without, stating from whom the order issued Ñ

As my name has been more or less connected with the business of exchange, I deem it proper to make the following explanation, which, in order to be intelligible, requires that I should refer to the original cause of the interruption of exchanges under the cartel of 1861 [1862], which was this: Jefferson Davis in a message to his Congress, some two years or more since, announced his purpose to deliver to the State authorities such white Union officers as might be captured serving in command of colored troops, to be dealt with according to State laws. in the South providing for the punishment of criminals engaged im exciting servile insurrection.

As soon as this became known to His Excellency the President he saw in that message a declared purpose to disregard the provisions of the cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and he thereupon directed that no further deliveries of captured rebel officers should be made from our side, as a necessary preparative to meet the threatened purpose of Mr. Davis. For a time after this enlisted men continued to be delivered on both sides, which, however, at length unavoidably ceased.

In July, 1863, upon the surrender of Vicksburg to General Grant, over thirty thousand rebel soldiers were left in the country by him on parole not to take arms until exchanged, to which number there were soon added several thousand captured by General Banks at Port Hudson, the garrison of that place, except the officers, having also been released on parole, according to the usages of war.

In this state of things it will be seen that we had a valid claim for æ large number of prisoners as an offset for those paroled by us in the South; but the rebel authorities had not in their hands prisoners of war with whom to balance the account.

Under these circumstances, as subsequent events fully demonstrated, the rebel authorities inaugurated a peculiar system for making what they chose to consider prisoners of war, to wit, that of capturing bodies of citizens in States accessible to them by raiding parties at vulnerable points—Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi—these raiding parties being composed of every species of regular and irregular forces, and placing such citizens under oath not to take arms against the Southern Confederacy until exchanged.

It will be apparent that while we had this claim upon the rebel authorities deliveries from our side could not be made, and for a time there was a total suspension of exchanges, and prisoners began to: accumulate on both sides, each party holding their captured prisoners..

At length our claim upon the rebel authorities was met under a perverted construction of the fifth article of the cartel by a sudden aud unauthorized declaration of exchange by the rebel agent of exchange without any conference or agreement whatever with our agent of exchange stationed at Fort Monroe. By that ex parte declaration our enemy released from parole a large body of General Grant’s prisoners without giving us any proper equivalents, and it is proper to observe that the enemy selected his own time for making this declaration, and by means of it threw into the rebel army, without any proper authority according to the laws of war, a large body of men just prior to the great battles which gave us the possession of Hast Tennessee in spite of the fraudulent attempt to overwhelm our troops by means of the declaration of exchange referred to. The declaration itself was deliberately prepared for by the enemy by an order directing the rebel paroled prisoners in the South to report themselves at Enterprise, in Mississippi, ostensibly for instruction, so that when the declaration was made our commanders found themselves confronted not only by a large army of actual rebels, but by a large body associated with them in violation of every known law of war. :

It was impossible to permit this outrage to be committed without a protest on our part, which was made, as a matter of course, by our agent of exchange. The correspondence at that time between the two agents was conducted with some asperity, the rebel agent attempting to justify himself by furnishing a schedule of captures, embracing some that were legitimate, but with others made up of the elass of persons captured in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, who could in no sense be considered prisoners of war, and it was found impossible to carry on the business of exchange under such conditions as the rebel agent of exchange attempted to enforce upon us, the enemy meanwhile refusing to recognize our claim that all of the troops employed by the United States were equally entitled, when captured, to be treated as prisoners of war, the disposition of the enemy being about that time sufficiently manifested in the barbarous butchery of portions of the Union Army which unhappily fell into their hands, making the duty on our side the more imperative to hold such prisoners as the Union Army might capture for such disposition as the laws of war might justify or require to restrain the enemy from their barbarous practices.

About the time when all exchanges had fully ceased, and the controversy about exchanges had measurably closed, we had a valid claim upon the rebels for wore than thirty-four thousand prisoners, the rebel agent having followed up his own example of making unauthorized ex parte declarations of exchange without any agreement whatever with our agent, until be had put into the rebel ranks the whole of the prisoners captured by General Grant and General Banks.

As the commissioner of exchange, myself, throughout the whole of the matters above detailed, I was not in direct communication with the rebel agent, but the correspondence was conducted on our part, first by Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow, and afterward by General Meredith.

At length General Butler was appointed to command, with his headquarters at Fort Monroe. He appears very soon to have conceived the idea that he could effect exchanges if empowered to do so; and a rumor to that point having reached me, I addressed a note to the Secretary of War, who may remember that I proposed to withdraw from the duty in favor of any officer who could make exchanges which should be satisfactory to the Department, but was informed that it was unnecessary, as the Department had other duties for me.

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Rumors with regard to General Butler’s ability to make exchanges continued to reach the Secretary of War, and upon being sent for myself I found the Secretary in conference with General Halleck upon the subject, and heard the statement made by the Secretary that General Butler was not only of the opinion himself that he could effect exchanges if empowered so to do, but that it was also the opinion of several members of Congress, upon which I expressed the opinion that he ought to be allowed to try; and I was thereupon directed to proceed to Fort Monroe to communicate the authority of the Secretary of War to General Butler to make exchanges of man for man, or officer for officer, according to grade, enjoining upon General Butler that he was on no account to compromise or jeopardize the claims of our colored ee to the protection of the Government, according to the laws of war.

I proceeded to Fort Monroe, and after communicating with General Butler, and stating the restrictions under which the Secretary had ‘placed him, I signed his orders, which were drawn up by himself, giving him the authority he desired, and returned to this city.

It is proper that I should state here that General Butler is my senior in rank, and that he immediately assumed the designation of commissioner of exchange, and has acted ever since in entire independence of myself, making no reports to me of his proceedings in that character,. which I mention simply as a fact, but not as taking exception to it.. From that time until within a few days I have had no practical controh of the subject of exchanges.

Soon after receiving the proper authority to make exchanges General Butler sent for exchange several hundred rebel prisoners by the flagof-truce boat, offering them in exchange for a like number of Uniom prisoners. When this became known to the rebel authorities—as E feel justified in saying from the information I have received—there was. some sort of conference held by the chief rebel officers in Richmond, in which it was determined that inasmuch as a number of their men had been sent for exchange, and were then within what they considered their boundaries, they should not be turned back into captivity, but that a corresponding number of Union prisoners should be delivered in exchange for them; but it was decided at the same time by the authorities in Richmond that, under a proclamation of Jefferson Davis, General Butler was an outlaw, and that no business whatever should. be done with him, and, as I am credibly informed, they declared that the flag of truce even should not protect him. This put an end to any further proceedings for some length of time in the business of exchange, and until an experiment was made at my suggestion, though not after the manner suggested by me. I had recommended to the Secretary of War that 300 or 400 rebel officers should be sent for exchange under a flag of truce, which I knew would not be accompanied by General Butler himself, and I was in hopes that public opinion in Richmond would constrain the authorities to accept that class of prisoners and return a like number for them, after which I thought they could not refuse to receive a boatload of their men. This suggestion was approved by the Secretary of War, and General Butler was directed through General (then Colonel) Canby to make the trial, but General Butler assumed to deviate from his orders, and sent a boatload of officers and men instead of officers alone. The enemy thereupon decided to return, not a like number of officers and men, but a number proportionate to the number of Union prisoners held by them as against, the number of rebel prisoners held by us.

Several boatloads were exchanged in this manner, the Richmond ¡papers stating distinctly the method adopted by their agent, the effect of which would have been to withdraw from us all of the prisoners we held for a much less number, while the question of our claim to equivaJents, under the unauthorized declarations of the rebel agent, was entirely abandoned, and there was no security for the proper treatment by the rebels of such of the colored soldiers and their officers as might fall into their hands.

After some three or four boatloads had been thus exchanged our Commissary-General of Prisoners called my attention to official reports, by which it appeared that, in these last exchanges, the prisoners returned by the rebel agent for rebel prisoners delivered by us fell short of the number,we were entitled to by more than five hundred men, which fact I felt it my duty to state to the Secretary of War; about which ‘time the Department decided to submit the whole subject to be disposed of by Lieutenant-General Grant, who, as I have understood, decided to require from the rebel authorities a distinct acknowledgment of the right of colored troops to be treated as prisoners of war, and if this was not conceded further exchanges were prohibited. I desire to say that I am not positive as to the source of the order just referred to, but have supposed that it proceeded from General Grant; and there the matter has rested for some time past.

I find it necessary to state, as a part of the history of this matter, that our agent, Lieutenant-Colonel Mulford, has informed me that the rebel authorities in Richmond have in no single instance communicated officially with General Butler, acting in accordance with their decision that General Butler was an outlaw under the proclamation of Mr. Davis, all of the apparent intercourse having been indirect through subordinate parties, General Butler having on one occasion acted upon a letter from Mr. Ould to my address, without my knowledge or sanction, thus making me officially answerable for a transaction with which I had nothing to do. But the greater part of the intercourse has been conducted through Lieutenant-Colonel Mulford, who was interposed by ‘General Butler between himself and the rebel authorities because those ‘authorities refused to communicate with him.

As the visit made by Mr. Ould to General Butler at Fort Monroe may seem to be in conflict with this statement, I feel obliged to say, as Iam well informed, that that visit was made without official public sanction on the part of the rebel authorities in Richmond. Jt was undertaken by Mr. Ould in the hope of accomplishing an exchange of prisoners which should give the rebels the possession of all the prisoners we held without conceding our claim to equivalents for General Grant’s captures, and without affording any guarantee for the protection of our colored troops, his efforts to this end no doubt having an indirect sanction from those to whom he was officially responsible, who were doubtless willing to see accomplished, by whatever means, a scheme which promised to add greatly to the strength of their army, except that they would not in any manner, even for that purpose, publicly acknowledge General Butler in any other character than that of an outlaw.

I do not wish it to be understood or implied that General Butler’s ‘position as an exchange agent has compromised the interests of the country, though he was unable to execute what he proposed when he ‘sought the position of exchange agent; but it is not proper to leave it to be inferred from his recent statement at Lowell that he could have anade exchanges without compromising the interests and honor of the

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country had he not been interfered with by orders from higher authority.*

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

Major-General of Vols., Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners.
[JANUARY 30, 1865.—For Augur to Halleck, in regard to status of
prisoners of war released on taking amnesty oath, and indorsements
thereon, see Series I, Vol. XLVI, Part IT, p. 308.]
WASHINGTON, January 30, 1865.
Brig. Gen. H. E. PAINE, 48 Bleecker Street, New York:
How soon will the clothing to be bought with the rebel cotton be