From the Richmond Enquirer, 12/10/1861

NEGRO PRISONERS OF WAR. - There are at present in the Confederate States prisons in this city, eighteen negroes, captured at different periods during the war, in the companionship of Yankee officer, whom they were serving in the capacity of servants. According to their own statements, they were all of them free, with the exception of one fellow, a negro named Charles Bouser, belonging to a gentleman in Fairfax, who declares, with ludicrous earnestness, that he was compelled by the Yankees to desert his master, and to accompany them. These “contrabands” are now usefully employed as cooks, waiters, &c., at the several prisons, and bear themselves with very proper correctness of deportment. Several of the number were taken at Manassas. They have all of them been recently supplied with new and comfortable clothing, through the influence of Captain Warner, the popular Commissary of the prisons. The following are the names of these prisoners:

Porter Smith, Fred Ford, James Johnson and Augustus Brown, of Washington City; Charles Dobson, John Rhodes and Charles Bouser, Fairfax county; Charles Smith, Cleveland; Julian McLane, Prince William county; Frank M. Welch, Meriden, Connecticut; Robert Halloway, Providence, Rhode Island; Wm. Boyer, New York; Stephen Johnston, Liverpool; Sam Jones, Michigan; Bill Johnson, Ohio, and Wealey Bryan and J. H. Edwards, Maryland.

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