The battery consists of four guns, two 10-pounders, rifled, and two Napoleon guns. The number of men detailed for guard duty each day is: Commissioner officers, 7; non-commissioned officers, 16; privates, 280; total, 303, exclusive of artillery. The guard is posted as follows: One man in each sentry box on the top of the stockade, forty men at each gate in the day and eighty at night. The remainder are posted in a line around and fifty yards distant from the stockade. The reliefs not on duty are required to remain at or very near their posts. The artillery is posted-a section of two guns on the summit of a hill within close range and commanding the gates and one slope of the interior of the inclosure; the other section of two guns is planted in a like manner on another hill commanding the gates and the other slope of the prison inclosure-the two sections thus supporting each other and commanding perfectly the gates and the whole interior of the prison. All the officers in command are of the opinion that the prison is secure as at present guarded, but all ask that I will suggest to the department that they believe it would be hazardous to the safety of the prisoners to make the contemplated change in the guard by substituting for one of the regiments now present a regiment of the reserve forces of the State, who are entirely unaccustomed to guard duty and liable to the numerous diseases that are incident to the commencement of camp life.

Commissary department. -This department is amply supplied with all the stores necessary for the subsistence of the prisoners. A large bakery and other culinary arrangements have just been completed of sufficient capacity to cook for the whole number of prisoners present. The rations issued to the prisoners are the same as those issued to Confederate soldiers in the field, viz, one pound of beef, or in lieu thereof one-third pound bacon and one-quarter pound meal, with an occasional issue of beans or peas, rice, molasses, and vinegar. The rations are now issued, cooked, in bulk to squads of 270 men, who divide them among themselves. A small supply of wood is also furnished them in the inclosure to cook anything that they may have of their own. Before the completion of the bakery the great scarcity of cooking utensils prevented a proper preparation of the food and thus materially increased the number of cases in the hospital. The commander of the prison informs me that with the additional of two or three more boilers to the present arrangement he can prepare food for 20,000 men.

Hospital department. -The hospital accommodations are extremely indifferent. The sick have no buildings or tents-nothing but thirty-five tent flies, and they nearly worn out. A portion of the ground inside the stockade is occupied as the hospital, a space entirely inadequate to the accommodation of the number of sick who are crowded in almost as think as they can be placed. The whole number of cases that have been treated since the establishment of the prison to the present date is 4,588; whole number of deaths, 1,036; number now in hospital, 582. Beside the number now in hospital the surgeon in charge, Doctor White, informs me that there are nearly 500 others under treatment who are not in hospital because there are no accommodations for them. The report of the sick and wounded for the month of April exhibits a ratio of 316. 1 cases and 57. 6 deaths per 1,000 of mean strength. The average number of deaths per day from the establishment of the prison to the present time is 13 2/3.

The number of deaths during the week ending May 8 was 131, making an average of 18 5/7 per day, thus showing a considerable increase in the mortality during the past week, and I am of the opinion that this increase will continue unless a decided improvement is made in