General Foster, replying, said in part:
Many months since Major-General Gillmore, United States army, notified General Beauregard, then commanding at Charleston, that the city would be bombarded. This notice was given, that non-combatants might be removed and thus women and children be spared from harm. General Beauregard, in a communication to General Gillmore, dated August 22, 1863, informed him that the noncombatant population of Charleston would be removed with all possible celerity. . . . That city is a depot for military supplies. It contains not merely arsenals, but also foundries and factories for the manufacture of munitions of war. In its shipyards several armed ironclads have already been completed, while others are still upon the stocks in course of construction. Its wharves and the banks of the rivers on both sides are lined with batteries. To destroy these means of continuing the war is therefore our object and duty. . . . . I have forwarded your communication to the President, with the request that he will place in my custody an equal number of prisoners of the like grades, to be kept by me in positions exposed to the fire of your guns as long as you continue the course stated in your communication.
General Halleck, Federal chief of staff, in a letter to Foster, June 21st, stated that the secretary of war approved his suggestion, and had ordered an equal number of Confederate generals and field officers to be forwarded to be treated precisely as the Federal prisoners were, and with proper precautions to prevent escape, ‘putting them in irons, if necessary, for that purpose.’ The first roll of Confederate prisoners of war made out for this purpose was from those confined at Fort Delaware, and included Maj.-Gens. Edward Johnson and Franklin Gardner, Brig.-Gens. J. J. Archer, G. H. Steuart and M. Jeff Thompson, and 46 colonels, lieutenant-colonels and majors.
General Jones, on July 1st, proposed to General Foster that they should exchange prisoners, if the respective governments approved, and enclosed communications from Brigadier-Generals Wessells, Seymour Scammon,
