February 1 to February 15, 1865, showing the component parts of the ration and the quantity of each. Compared in quantity and kind with the rations issued to our own troops in the field, it will be seen that on this score the prisoners have no cause to complain. The rations are cooked before they are issued, and pains have been taken by General Johnson to see that no frauds are committed in this department to the injury of the prisoners. Bread and meant (or sorghum in lieu of meat) are issued every morning, rice or pea soup in the afternoon. The bread which I inspected in the bakery was of average quality and of the average weight of five pounds to the double loaf. A half loaf, therefore, the daily allowance of each prisoner, will average twenty ounces of bread, the equivalent of sixteen ounces of flour.

III. Clothing.-More than from any other cause the prisoners have suffered this winter from the want of sufficient and suitable clothing, being generally destitute of blankets and having only such clothes as they wore when captured, which, in the case of many of them, was during warm weather. Recently 3,000 blankets and 1,000 pair of pants have been received from the United States and are now being distributed under the supervision of three Federal officers sent here from Danville for the purpose. Additional supplies are expected, and it is probable that one principal cause of suffering will therefore soon be removed, one for which, however, the Confederate Government is under no circumstances chargeable, but which is ascribable solely to the neglect of their own Government. As already stated, General Johnson has taken every necessary step to prevent speculation upon the necessities of the prisoners by prohibiting all purchases from them of articles of clothing by soldiers or citizens.

IV. Prison quarters.-Three hundred tents and flies of mixed sizes and patterns were issued for the use of the prisoners of war in October by Major Morfit, prison quartermaster, and constitute the only shelter provided during the winter for a number of prisoners, amounting on the 7th of November to 8,740, and the 15th of February to 5,070. Major Morfit showed me the frame of a large barrack, of which he told me he had contemplated erecting five for the accommodation of the prisoners, but was stopped by an order two months ago from the Commissary-General of Prisoners, intimating the possibility of a speedy removal of the prisoners, and ordering all work of the kind to be suspended. The prisoners were not removed, and in my judgment if General Winder's order had never been issued Major Morfit's plan would have been found, in its conception, to involve great and unnecessary expense to the Government, probably not less than $75,000 or $100,000, and in its execution would probably have consumed the entire winter, and therefore have resulted in little practical benefit to the prisoners. A better plan would have been, failing to obtain a sufficient supply of tents, to have constructed cabins of pine logs and shingles, for which the material was at hand in abundance, and labor could have been furnished by the troops, or, if necessary, by details of the prisoners themselves, working under guard. In this way the garrison who guard the prisoners have been made comfortable; so might have been the prisoners. I cannot consider it, therefore, a matter of choice on their own part, that at the time of my inspection I found one-third of the latter burrowing like animals in holes under ground or under the buildings in the inclosure.

V. Prison hospitals.-One of the most painful features connected with the prison is the absence of adequate provision or accommodation for the sick. There is no separate hospital inclosure, but with a few exceptions, as will be seen from the diagram, all the buildings in the