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I herewith transmit a communication from the Secretary of War, covering a list of the civilian prisoners now in custody at the military prison at Salisbury, N. C., in further response to your resolution of the 5th instant, and invite attention to the recommendation in regard to a class of officers to be charged with the special duty of inquiring into the cases of prisoners arrested by military authority. I think such officers would be useful, they being selected for special qualifications, and invested with specific powers.
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives, I have the honor to enclose a list of the civilian prisoners now in custody in this city and at Salisbury, North Carolina, under military authority. No arrests have been made, at any time, by any specific order or direction of this Department. The persons arrested have been taken either by officers of the army commanding in the field, or by Provost Marshals, exercising authority of a similar nature, and the ground for arrest, is, or ought to be founded upon some necessity, or be justified as a proper precaution against an apparent danger. The Department has had commissioners to examine these persons, with directions “to discharge those against whom no well-grounded cause of suspicion exists of having violated a law or done an act hostile or injurious to the Confederate States.”
The Department appointed, in November last, a commissioner to examine prisoners in the South-western Department, embracing a portion of Georgia, Alabama, and a portion of Mississippi. This commission found some obstructions in the performance of his duties, from the Provost Marshals, and some difficulty in obtaining reports from them. He resigned in the latter part of January, without making a report of the prisoners remaining in the department for which he was appointed. These commissioners have been found useful, and I recommend that the Department may be authorized to appoint them for the objects before mentioned, and that they be clothed with the authority of commissioners under the act of the Provisional Congress, No. 273, respecting commissioners appointed by the district courts.
In conclusion, I have to say, that under the examinations that have been made a large number of prisoners have been discharged, and none are retained unless there be a cause of suspicion, supported by testimony rendering it probable that the discharge of the prisoners would be prejudicial to the public interest.