To the rear of the north hospital building was the pest-house, a defunct shoe shop, in which convalescent shoemakers, who were soldiers in the rebel army, worked for the benefit of the C. S. A. To the rear of the center building was the cook-house and eating room, where convalescents took their meals, and to the rear of the cook-house stood the dead house, where the dead were placed prior to burial. To the rear of the south building was the bakery, where all the bread of the hospital and prisons was baked. This arrangement brought the three hospital buildings in a line, while the bakery, dead house and pest-house were in a line to the rear. A line of guards paced their beats around the whole. I supposed when I was sent to the hospital that I had fever of some kind, but in two days the soreness of my throat and the pustules on my face and hands told the story too plainly, that the inoculation of a few days before was doing its work. I was down with a mild form of small-pox, varioloid, the doctors called it, but a Tennessee soldier pronounced it a case of the “Very O Lord.” I was taken from the hospital to the pest-house and laid on a straw pallet. My clothes were taken from me and sent to the wash-house and I was given a thin cotton shirt and a thin quilt for a covering. The pest-house was but a slim affair, being built for summer use. It stood upon piles four feet high, was boarded up and down without battens and as the lumber was green when built, the cracks were half an inch in width at this time. January 1st, 1864, was a terribly cold day. The Rebel Steward thinking we were not getting air enough, opened two windows in the ward I was in and then toasted himself at a good fire in another ward. I was charitably inclined and wished from the bottom of my heart that that Steward might have the benefit of a hot fire, both here and hereafter. I nearly froze to death that day. My limbs were as cold as those of a corpse, but relief came about nine o’clock that night in the shape of a pint of hot crust coffee which I placed between my feet until all the heat had passed into my limbs, which, with constant rubbing, thawed me out. Our rations at the hospital consisted of a slice of wheat bread and a half pint of thick beef soup, this was given us twice a day. After staying in the pest-house a week a suit of clothes was given me and I was sent to Hospital No. 3, which had been turned into a small-pox hospital. Nearly forty per cent. of the Danville prisoners had small-pox yet the death rate was not high from that disease; diarrhea and scurvy were the deadly foes of the prisoners, and swept them off as with a besom.