500 patients. This morning's report shows 977 in hospital. Captain Turner has visited the Texas Hospital and pronounces the building ineligible for a prison hospital because of the difficulty in guarding it. Please have turned over to me as soon as practicable either Hospital Numbers 20 or 23.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JNO WILKINS,

Surgeon in Charge.

[Inclosure Numbers 3.]

MEDICAL DIRECTOR'S OFFICE,

Richmond, November 21, 1863.

Major PEGRAM, Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I have the honor to report that there are 1,296 sick Federal prisoners requiring hospital accommodation in this city. The present hospital accommodation will barely be sufficient for 800 men. I request that the buildings known formerly as General Hospitals Nos. 20 and 23 be secured by the quartermaster and opened as prison hospitals at once. The Texas Hospital which I designed opening is reported as unfit for this purpose from the difficulty of guarding it.

Very respectfully,

WM. A CARRINGTON,

Medical Director.

[Inclosure Numbers 4.]

MEDICAL DIRECTOR'S OFFICE,

Richmond, December 3, 1863.

General WINDER, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: I have the honor to report that on inquiry at the Commissary-General's Office I was informed that an order had been issued by the Secretary of War to furnish the same rations to the prisoners as to the Confederate soldiers in hospital on the return of the surgeon in charge, and that application had been made that the same commissary that acted at the other C. S. hospitals should supply that for the Federals. The diversity of the duties required a division, and hence I propose to assign the troops on the island and barracks to the medical care of one surgeon and assistant surgeon, and the sick in the general hospital to that of another, both to be independent of each other, but under the military authority of the commandant of the prisons.

Very respectfully,

WM. A. CARRINGTON,

Medical Director.

[Inclosure Numbers 5.]

MEDICAL DIRECTOR'S OFFICE,

Richmond, December 18, 1863.

General WINDER, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: I have the honor to report that the building known as General Hospital Numbers 10, or the U. S. Hotel, will not be used as a general hospital in future. It is very commodious and has been put in excellent order by the Government. I request that you have it examined to decide whether it cannot be used to advantage for other purposes of the Confederate States. Its proximity to Castle Thunder and its construction will fit it for offices and officers' quarters and I think for the