From the Richmond Dispatch, 1/27/1863, p. 1, c. 5

Set on Fire. – Great alarm was created among the inhabitants of Castle Thunder at 5 o’clock yesterday evening by the cry of fire, which was raised at that hour by the inmates lodged in the second story. Dense volumes of smoke were found proceeding out of the room occupied by the clerk and sundry other officers. The door being broken open it was found that the bed and other fixtures in the room were burning furiously, the incendiary material having doubtless been thrown over the grating of the door by some one of the many miscreants confined in the Castle. Ten of the thirty Yankee sailors confined there were converted into bucket men, and, under the superintendence of Capt. Alexander, soon succeeded in mastering the flames, the burning remnants of the bed being thrown in the street. During the progress of this incipient conflagration the women and some of the men evinced the utmost alarm, wringing their hands and crying aloud. Nobody was hurt, and nothing but the furniture in the room was destroyed.

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