yards on each side of it the ground is a muddy marsh, totally unfit for occupation, and having been constantly used as a sink the prison was first established, it is now in a shocking condition and cannot fail to breed pestilence. An effort is being made by Captain Wirz, commanding the prison, to fill up the marsh and construct a sluice-the upper end to be used for bathing, &c., the lower as a sink-but the difficulty of procuring lumber and tools very much retards the work and threatens soon to stop it. No shelter whatever, nor materials for constructing any, has been provided by the prison authorities, and the ground being entirely bare of trees, none is within reach of the prisoners, nor has it been possible, form the overcrowded state of the inclosure, to arrange the camp with any system. Each man has been permitted to protect himself as best he can, stretching his blanket, or whatever he may have, above him on such sticks as he can procure, thatches of pine or whatever his ingenuity may suggest and his cleverness supply. Of other shelter there is and has been none. The whole number of prisoners is divided into messes of 270, and subdivisions of 90 men, each under a sergeant of their own number and selection, and but one C. S. officer, Captain Wirz, is assigned to the supervision and control of the whole. In consequence of this fact and the absence of all regularity in the prison grounds, and there being no barracks or tents, there are and can be no regulations established for the "police consideration for the health, comfort, and sanitary condition of those within the inclosure", and none are practicable under existing circumstances. In evidence of their condition I would cite the facts that numbers have been found murdered by their comrades, and that recently, in their desperate efforts to provide for their own safety; a court organized among themselves, by authority of General Winder, commanding the post, granted on their own application, has tried a large number of their fellow-prisoners and sentenced six to be hung, which sentence was duty executed by themselves within the stockade, with the sanction of the post commander. His order in the case has been forwarded by him to the War Department. There is no medical attendance furnished within the stockade. Small quantities of medicines are placed in the hands of certain prisoners of each squad or division, and the sick are directed to be brought out by the sergeants of squads daily at 'sick-call" to the medical officers who attend at the gate. The crowd at these times is as great that only the strongest can get access to the doctors, the weaker ones being unable to force their way through the press; and the hospital accommodations are so limited that, though the beds (so-called) have all or nearly all two occupants each, large numbers who would otherwise be received are necessarily sent back to the stockade. Many-twenty yesterday-are carted out daily, who have died from unknown causes and whom the medical officers have never seen. The dead are hauled out daily the wagon load and buried without coffins, their hands in many instances being first mutilated with an ax in the removal of any finger rings they may have. The sanitary condition of the prisoners is as wretched as can be, the principal causes of morality being scurvy and chronic diarrhea, the percentage of the former being disproportionately large among those brought from Belle Isle. Nothing seems to have been done, and but little, if any effort, made to arrest it by procuring proper food. The ration is one-third pound of bacon and one pound and a quarter unbolted corn-meal with fresh beef at rare intervals, and occasionally rice. When to be obtained-very seldom-a small quantity of molasses is substituted for the meat ration. A little weak vinegar, unfit for use,