ability of the polite and gentlemanly commandant will permit, yet it is manifest that the principal streets are now avoided on account of the excessive offensiveness therefrom.

We believe the large number of cases of fever proceed from the causes enumerated; and if it commences so soon in the year, what are we to expect during the summer months if the cause remains? And as the situation of our town is such as to preclude the establishing of proper regulations to enable the authorities to get clear of the offensive matter that naturally accumulates, we therefore respectfully request that the necessary steps be taken to have the prisoners removed from the limit of the town.

J. M. SMITH, M. D.,

W. S. GREEN, M. D.,

THOS. D. STOKES, M. D.,

GEO. E. WELSH,

Board of Health.

[Inclosure Numbers 4.]

DANVILLE, VA., January 27, 1864.

The undersigned citizens of Danville desire to call the attention of the council to an intolerable grievance by which they

are annoyed, and which threatens the destruction of their families unless it shall be speedily removed.

The stench arising from the C. S. prisons in this place, and in which there are some 4,000 Yankee prisoners confined, many of them suffering from smallpox and other virulent diseases, is to extremely offensive to the neighborhood in which we respectively reside as not only to subject us and our families to the greatest degree of annoyance, but, as we are informed by our physicians, to render it almost certain that the most fearful and fatal diseases must soon be brought upon us.

Under these circumstances we call upon you, as the legislative authority of the town, to take such measures in the premises as you may deem most efficient in relieving us from the present and prospective evils of our condition.

We are confident that in making proper inquiry into the matter you will adopt prompt means to effect an object so desirable not only to us, but to the whole town.

We are, very respectfully, your constituents,

WADDELL, PARISH & CO.,

Proprietors Tunstall House.

SAMUEL S. BRYANT.

JULIUS GERST.

[And fifty other persons and firms.]

CALHOUN, McMINN COUNTY, TENN., January 28, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States of America:

SIR: John L. Bridges, esq., Mr. Alfred Swafford, and myself were arrested last Saturday morning at our homes, in this county, and are now held at this place by the military authorities of the United States, as they allege, merely as hostages for Jesse R. Blackburn, a citizen of this county, who they allege was arrested in November last by the military of the Confederate States for being, as they alleged, engaged in bushwhacking or harboring bushwhackers, and who, they allege, is now held in custody at Richmond.