panying the detachment are two officers of the medical staff in your service. They are released as non-combatants, in compliance with existing orders from my Government. Your communication of the 5th instant sent under flag of truce would have been acknowledge by me, but I have been absent some time sick and have just returned to duty in the department. I will give its subject my immediate attention, and in acknowledging your courtesy, general, subscribe myself, with feelings of respect,
Your most obedient servant,
E. KIRBY SMITH,
Major-General, Commanding.
QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, July 21, 1862.
Colonel WILLIAM HOFFMAN,
Commissary-General of Prisoners, Detroit, Mich.
COLONEL: The articles specified in your requisition of the 7th instant for issue to prisoners of war at Fort Delaware have this day been ordered from the depot in this city to Captain A. A. Gibson, commanding Fort Delaware.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ALEX J. PERRY,
Assistant Quartermaster.
DETROIT, July 21, 1862.
General L. THOMAS:
One hundred and three prisoners escaped from Camp Douglas and forty-three from Camp Butler. I leave for Washington to-day.
W. HOFFMAN,
Commissary-General of Prisoners.
HEADQUARTERS, Camp Douglas, Chicago, July 21, 1862.
Colonel WILLIAM HOFFMAN,
Commissary-General of Prisoners, Detroit, Mich.
COLONEL: I have the honor to forward the following papers, viz:
1. Letter from Captain Potter, assistant quartermaster, Chicago, Ill., requesting copy of your order to send rebel commissioned officers to Sandusky. Indorsed July 19, 1862, asking information.
2. Report of Post Surgeon McVickar on sanitary condition of the camp and employment of another contract physician. Indorsed July 16, 1862: Approved and referred.
3. Certificate* of post surgeon recommending parole of Thomas Coulter, Company D, Forty-ninth Tennessee, on account of ill-health. Indorsed July 20, 1862: Approved and referred.
4. Petition* of N. M. D. Kemp and others regarding certain-prisoners of war, referred by General Halleck to commanding officer camp Douglas, July 15, 1862. Indorsed: Release of Drake and Hail recommended, July 20, 1862.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JOSEPH H. TUCKER,
Colonel Sixty-ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, Commanding Post.
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* Not found.
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