OFFICE COMMISSARY - GENERAL OF PRISONERS,

Washington, D. C., January 27, 1865.

Colonel B. T. TRACY,

Commanding Depot Prisoners of War, Elmira, N. Y.:

COLONEL: I have the honor, by direction of the Commissary - General of Prisoners, to acknowledge receipt of requisitions for clothing forwarded by your for approval on the 21st instant. As the cotton for the purchase of supplies for rebel prisoners has arrived at new York, it is supposed that clothing will be forwarded by General Beall nearly or quite as soon as it could be furnished by the Quartermaster's Department. The requisitions will be held for the present.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. BLAGDEN

Major, Second Mass. Cav., Asst. to Com. General of Prisoners,

COLUMBIA, S. C., January 27, 1865.

Brigadier General J. H. WINDER,

Commissary - General of Military Prisons:

GENERAL: In obedience to Special Orders, Numbers 15, of January 23, I have the honor to report the results of an inspection made by me of the military prison at Florence, S. C.:

The general discipline is perfectly satisfactory; everything in the interior of the stockade exhibits great energy and tact. The hospital department is ample and comfortable, and the patients are well cared for. The subsistence department is entirely deficient, and the ration issued daily amounts almost to starvation. There has been but two issues of meat in the last two months and scarcely ever sirup. This will be better explained by document marked A, from Lieutenant - Colonel Iverson, commanding prison.

There is no officer of the Quartermaster's Department at this prison nor any transportation, and the laborers (prisoners) are compelled to carry the timber for the construction of buildings necessary for the public use on their shoulders full one mile.

I would most respectfully suggest that an assistant quartermaster be sent to the prison as soon as possible, and he be supplied with transportation sufficient for their use.

The books are well and neatly kept, and any prisoner can be found or accounted for in a moment.

The number of prisoners are as follows:

In the stockade.................................. 6,845

Paroled to work.................................. 156

In hospital...................................... 537

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Total............................................ 7,538

The mortality among the prisoners is an average of six pe day, and the prevailing disease diarrhea. Some few cases of smallpox and typhoid fever.

The guard force inefficient and without proper discipline, and are composed of reserves and about ninety men of the Fifty-fifth Georgia Volunteers.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

H. FORNO,

Colonel, Provisional Army.