The court-house had not been used for any purpose since the evacuation of the city by the Confederates. Men were now put to work in cleaning and fitting it up for the purposes of the new provost-court. A large building on the outskirts of the city, which had been used for the temporary detention of slaves, and therefore called a "slave-pen," was cleaned and fitted up as a guard-house. The old jail was cleaned, whitewashed, and renovated generally. A large, empty building, in the heart of the city, was fitted up for the provost-marshal's office, and as quarters for the guards. Captain Griffiths, of Pennsylvania, the senior captain of the companies then on duty as sentinels, was appointed provost-marshal, and the two companies then on duty organized as a provost-guard. The duty assigned them was to arrest every drunken man--officer, private, or citizen--whom they observed to be disturbing the peace of the city, whether at hotels, drinking saloons, on the streets, or elsewhere; to take them, so soon as arrested, to the officer in charge at the guard-house and report all the facts to him; if the officer at the guard-house deemed the complaint to be of such seriousness as to require a further hearing, the arrested party was to be locked up until the next sitting of the provost-court, when he was to be brought before that court for trial. This was to be the procedure not only in cases of drunkenness, but in all other cases of petty misdemeanor. If, however, the offence was of a more serious character, the party arrested was to be taken at once before the provost-marshal, and all the facts immediately after reported to the provost-judge. If he deemed the charges sufficiently strong to hold the arrested party, he was then to be sent to the county jail and there held until next day, or until the court was ready to try the case, which usually was on the day following the arrest. It was arranged that a session of the provost-court should be held every day (Sundays excepted) at the court-house, commencing at ten o'clock, and continue until all the cases were disposed of. Usually this could be done between ten and twelve o'clock; but occasionally the sessions extended until late in the afternoon.