I was much abused and complained of, but I held to my text and never did put but one house, and that was under peremptory orders, and even that was not quite completed when I was ordered away in September.

As regards the necessary cooking and baking arrangements, I confess that at one time the prisoners suffered greatly in the want of cooking apparatus, but this was owing entirely to having provided for 10,000 men and having twice that number forced upon me. I did, however, all in my power to assist them in the matter, and when I left Andersonville the cooking arrangements were ample and sufficient. As to the water for the use of prisoners at Andersonville, the stream that flowed through the prison was originally as pure and limpid as possible and was injured by an error of my own judgment. In constructing the first baking and cooking houses, knowing that they would require much water in the use of them, I placed them directly on the stream flowing directly into the prison (they could not be placed on the other side, as the water would then have flowed through the sinks), not dreaming that there would be sufficient offal to infuse the water, but such was the case, and the only remedy then left was to allow the prisoners as many wells on the inside of the prison as were needed, and this was done by Captain Wirz. This, together with the complaint that he prisoners were robbed at the cook-house of portion of their rations (a state of things I should never have supposed possible, as, according to my recollection, there were only four of our detailed men at both the cooking and baking houses, and the balance of the force, some 100 and odd men, were paroled prisoners), caused me to suggest that in the building of the prison near Millen, Ga., that the baking and cooking houses be put up on the inside of the prison, and instead of having them in one extensive building, let there be more of them-a baking and cooking arrangement to every 1,000 men-which suggestion was adopted.

In regard to the prisoners themselves, I never, under any circumstances, had any command over them whatever, excepting those who were paroled on the outside of the prison, receiving double rations, and were assisting me in my department to build barracks, hospitals, commissary store-houses, doing duty as teamsters, &c., and I never even supplied these men with their rations. I not only never maltreated one of these men, but never punished one of them except to return them to the inside of the prison, and I do not now recollect even to have done that except in cases where they had broken their paroles. I was never on the inside of the prison at Andersonville more than half a dozen times in my life, and was never once inside the prison at Macon. I had more of my own duty to do than I could really well attend to, and never meddled with, inquired after, or interfered with any other department. Some time in September, 1864, I was assigned to duty as chief quartermaster of prisons in Georgia and my headquarters ordered at Camp Lawton, the prison near Millen, but I remained at Andersonville until the 1st of October, when I assigned Captain James H. Wright, assistant quartermaster, to duty at Andersonville. Captain L. L. Varnadoe, assistant quartermaster, had already been assigned by the Quartermaster-General to duty at the Millen Prison. When I left Andersonville six of the prisoners that had been paroled and under me, and to whom I had become much attached, made petition to be allowed to go with me, which petition was granted them. Four of these I took and kept with me at my own private quarters, about three miles from the prison, and allowed them all sorts of privileges. The other two