O.R.--SERIES II--VOLUME VIII [S# 121]

UNION AND CONFEDERATE CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, ETC., RELATING TO PRISONERS OF WAR AND STATE FROM JANUARY 1, 1865, TO THE END.--#4

RICHMOND, January 19, 1865.

Honorable SECRETARY OF WAR:

DEAR SIR: Allow me most respectfully to call your attention to an evil which demands immediate remedy. On yesterday I visited that part of Castle Thunder occupied by the Yankee deserters. This gave me an opportunity of knowing something of their situation. Permit me to say it is one of very great discomfort--so much so that if the weather should become colder or the present cold continue, some of them must freeze, to say nothing of other discomforts. I am the post chaplain at Camp Lee.

Yours, very respectfully,

HENRY BROWN.

<ar121_94>

[First indorsement.]

JANUARY 20, 1865.

Respectfully returned to Honorable Secretary of War.

The complaint is well founded. These men sometimes pass the night without fire. The quartermaster of prisons is forbidden to get fuel except through the regular channels. I have forwarded repeated complaints without remedy. I do not doubt that there has been considerable loss of life already at the Libby and Castle Thunder from this cause. The fault is with those officers whose duty it was to furnish a supply of fuel, and who have not made proper provisions.

IS. H. CARRINGTON,
Provost-Marshal.

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