The room fronts northeast, and from the five square windows we had something of a view of the town. To the right, across the street, is a large warehouse occupied us barracks by the City Guard. To the left Castle Thunder could be seen. The windows on the right hand side look across a narrow street, and upon a tobacco warehouse and manufactory, where, during the day, negroes, mostly females, could be seen at work with the fragrant weed. The back windows overlooked the canal, the James river and the three bridges across it, Manchester, and a delightful stretch of country south of the James.
Rockets is barely discernable on the left.
Many had been confined as long as five months, and there were men from every prison in the Southern confederacy. The treatment which some of them had received before reaching Richmond had been barbarous. Both officers and men of Col. Coburn command had been deprived of their overcoats by Gen. Bragg, and had been obliged to march and to lie in the cold and wet. Many of them had perished under this treatment. Accounts from all portions of the confederacy were of rapidly approaching starvation, of general disaffection among the people, and of returning Union sentiment.