ANDERSONVILLE A STORY OF REBEL MILITARY PRISONS

 FIFTEEN MONTHS A GUEST OF THE SO-CALLED SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY

 A PRIVATE SOLDIERS EXPERIENCE IN RICHMOND, ANDERSONVILLE, SAVANNAH, MILLEN BLACKSHEAR AND FLORENCE

 BY JOHN McELROY Late of Co. L. 16th Ill Cav. 1879

TO THE HONORABLE

 NOAH H. SWAYNE. 

 JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, A JURIST OF DISTINGUISHED TALENTS AND EXALTED CHARACTER; ONE OF THE LAST OF THAT ADMIRABLE ARRAY OF PURE PATRIOTS AND SAGACIOUS COUNSELORS, WHO, IN THE YEARS OF THE NATION'S TRIAL, FAITHFULLY SURROUNDED THE GREAT PRESIDENT, AND, WITH HIM, BORE THE BURDEN OF THOSE MOMENTOUS DAYS; AND WHOSE WISDOM AND FAIRNESS HAVE DONE SO MUCH SINCE TO CONSERVE WHAT WAS THEN WON, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH RESPECT AND APPRECIATION, BY THE AUTHOR. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The fifth part of a century almost has sped with the flight of time sincethe outbreak of the Slaveholder's Rebellion against the United States. The young men of to-day were then babes in their cradles, or, if morethan that, too young to be appalled by the terror of the times. Thosenow graduating from our schools of learning to be teachers of youth andleaders of public thought, if they are ever prepared to teach the historyof the war for the Union so as to render adequate honor to its martyrsand heroes, and at the same time impress the obvious moral to be drawnfrom it, must derive their knowledge from authors who can each one say ofthe thrilling story he is spared to tell: "All of which I saw, and partof which I was. "

The writer is honored with the privilege of introducing to the reader avolume written by an author who was an actor and a sufferer in the sceneshe has so vividly and faithfully described, and sent forth to the publicby a publisher whose literary contributions in support of the loyal causeentitle him to the highest appreciation. Both author and publisher havehad an honorable and efficient part in the great struggle, and aretherefore worthy to hand down to the future a record of the perilsencountered and the sufferings endured by patriotic soldiers in theprisons of the enemy. The publisher, at the beginning of the war, entered, with zeal and ardor upon the work of raising a company of men, intending to lead them to the field. Prevented from carrying out thisdesign, his energies were directed to a more effective service. Hisfamous "Nasby Letters" exposed the absurd and sophistical argumentationsof rebels and their sympathisers, in such broad, attractive and admirableburlesque, as to direct against them the "loud, long laughter of aworld!" The unique and telling satire of these papers became a power andinspiration to our armies in the field and to their anxious friends athome, more than equal to the might of whole battalions poured in upon theenemy. An athlete in logic may lay an error writhing at his feet, andafter all it may recover to do great mischief. But the sharp wit of thehumorist drives it before the world's derision into shame and everlastingcontempt. These letters were read and shouted over gleefully at everycamp-fire in the Union Army, and eagerly devoured by crowds of listenerswhen mails were opened at country post-offices. Other humorists werecontent when they simply amused the reader, but "Nasby's" jests werearguments--they had a meaningthey were suggested by the necessities andemergencies of the Nation's peril, and written to support, with allearnestness, a most sacred cause. 

The author, when very young, engaged in journalistic work, until the drumof the recruiting officer called him to join the ranks of his country'sdefenders. As the reader is told, he was made a prisoner. He took withhim into the terrible prison enclosure not only a brave, vigorous, youthful spirit, but invaluable habits of mind and thought for storing upthe incidents and experiences of his prison life. As a journalist he hadacquired the habit of noticing and memorizing every striking or thrillingincident, and the experiences of his prison life were adapted to enstampthemselves indelibly on both feeling and memory. He speaks from personalexperience and from the stand-paint of tender and complete sympathy withthose of his comrades who suffered more than he did himself. Of hisqualifications, the writer of these introductory words need not speak. The sketches themselves testify to his ability with such force that nocommendation is required. 

This work is needed. A generation is arising who do not know what thepreservation of our free government cost in blood and suffering. Eventhe men of the passing generation begin to be forgetful, if we may judgefrom the recklessness or carelessness of their political action. Thesoldier is not always remembered nor honored as he should be. But, whatto the future of the great Republic is more important, there is greatdanger of our people under-estimating the bitter animus and terriblemalignity to the Union and its defenders cherished by those who made warupon it. This is a point we can not afford to be mistaken about. Andyet, right at this point this volume will meet its severest criticism, and at this point its testimony is most vital and necessary. 

Many will be slow to believe all that is here told most truthfully of thetyranny and cruelty of the captors of our brave boys in blue. There areno parallels to the cruelties and malignities here described in Northernsociety. The system of slavery, maintained for over two hundred years atthe South, had performed a most perverting, morally desolating, and wemight say, demonizing work on the dominant race, which people bred underour free civilization can not at once understand, nor scarcely believewhen it is declared unto them. This reluctance to believe unwelcometruths has been the snare of our national life. We have not been willingto believe how hardened, despotic, and cruel the wielders ofirresponsible power may become. 

When the anti-slavery reformers of thirty years ago set forth thecruelties of the slave system, they were met with a storm of indignantdenial, villification and rebuke. When Theodore D. Weld issued his"Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, " to the cruelty of slavery, heintroduced it with a few words, pregnant with sound philosophy, which canbe applied to the work now introduced, and may help the reader better toaccept and appreciate its statements. Mr. Weld said:

"Suppose I should seize you, rob you of your liberty, drive you into thefield, and make you work without pay as long as you lived. Would that bejustice? Would it be kindness? Or would it be monstrous injustice andcruelty? Now, is the man who robs you every day too tender-hearted everto cuff or kick you? He can empty your pockets without remorse, but ifyour stomach is empty, it cuts him to the quick. He can make you work alife-time without pay, but loves you too well to let you go hungry. He fleeces you of your rights with a relish, but is shocked if you workbare-headed in summer, or without warm stockings in winter. He can makeyou go without your liberty, but never without a shirt. He can crush inyou all hope of bettering your condition by vowing that you shall die hisslave, but though he can thus cruelly torture your feelings, he willnever lacerate your back--he can break your heart, but is very tender ofyour skin. He can strip you of all protection of law, and all comfort inreligion, and thus expose you to all outrages, but if you are exposed tothe weather, half-clad and half-sheltered, how yearn his tender bowels!What! talk of a man treating you well while robbing you of all you get, and as fast as you get it? And robbing you of yourself, too, your handsand feet, your muscles, limbs and senses, your body and mind, yourliberty and earnings, your free speech and rights of conscience, yourright to acquire knowledge, property and reputation, and yet you arecontent to believe without question that men who do all this by theirslaves have soft hearts oozing out so lovingly toward their humanchattles that they always keep them well housed and well clad, never pushthem too hard in the field, never make their dear backs smart, nor lettheir dear stomachs get empty!"

In like manner we may ask, are not the cruelties and oppressionsdescribed in the following pages what we should legitimately expect frommen who, all their lives, have used whip and thumb-screw, shot-gun andbloodhound, to keep human beings subservient to their will? Are we toexpect nothing but chivalric tenderness and compassion from men who madewar on a tolerant government to make more secure their barbaric system ofoppression?

These things are written because they are true. Duty to the brave dead, to the heroic living, who have endured the pangs of a hundred deaths fortheir country's sake; duty to the government which depends on the wisdomand constancy of its good citizens for its support and perpetuity, callsfor this "round, unvarnished tale" of suffering endured for freedom'ssake. 

The publisher of this work urged his friend and associate in journalismto write and send forth these sketches because the times demanded justsuch an expose of the inner hell of the Southern prisons. The tendermercies of oppressors are cruel. We must accept the truth and act inview of it. Acting wisely on the warnings of the past, we shall be ableto prevent treason, with all its fearful concomitants, from being againthe scourge and terror of our beloved land. 

ROBERT McCUNE. 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Fifteen months ago--and one month before it was begun--I had no more ideaof writing this book than I have now of taking up my residence in China. 

While I have always been deeply impressed with the idea that the publicshould know much more of the history of Andersonville and other Southernprisons than it does, it had never occurred to me that I was in any waycharged with the duty of increasing that enlightenment. 

No affected deprecation of my own abilities had any part is this. I certainly knew enough of the matter, as did every other boy who hadeven a month's experience in those terrible places, but the verymagnitude of that knowledge overpowered me, by showing me the vastrequirements of the subject-requirements that seemed to make itpresumption for any but the greatest pens in our literature to attemptthe work. One day at Andersonville or Florence would be task enough forthe genius of Carlyle or Hugo; lesser than they would fail preposterouslyto rise to the level of the theme. No writer ever described such adeluge of woes as swept over the unfortunates confined in Rebel prisonsin the last year-and-a-half of the Confederacy's life. No man was evercalled upon to describe the spectacle and the process of seventy thousandyoung, strong, able-bodied men, starving and rotting to death. Such agigantic tragedy as this stuns the mind and benumbs the imagination. 

I no more felt myself competent to the task than to accomplish one ofMichael Angelo's grand creations in sculpture or painting. 

Study of the subject since confirms me in this view, and my only claimfor this book is that it is a contribution--a record of individualobservation and experience--which will add something to the materialwhich the historian of the future will find available for his work. 

The work was begun at the suggestion of Mr. D. R. Locke, (Petroleum V. Nasby), the eminent political satirist. At first it was only intended towrite a few short serial sketches of prison life for the columns of theTOLEDO BLADE. The exceeding favor with which the first of the series wasreceived induced a great widening of their scope, until finally they tookthe range they now have. 

I know that what is contained herein will be bitterly denied. I amprepared for this. In my boyhood I witnessed the savagery of the Slaveryagitation--in my youth I felt the fierceness of the hatred directedagainst all those who stood by the Nation. I know that hell hath no furylike the vindictiveness of those who are hurt by the truth being told ofthem. I apprehend being assailed by a sirocco of contradiction andcalumny. But I solemnly affirm in advance the entire and absolute truthof every material fact, statement and description. I assert that, so farfrom there being any exaggeration in any particular, that in no instancehas the half of the truth been told, nor could it be, save by an inspiredpen. I am ready to demonstrate this by any test that the deniers of thismay require, and I am fortified in my position by unsolicited lettersfrom over 3, 000 surviving prisoners, warmly indorsing the account asthoroughly accurate in every respect. 

It has been charged that hatred of the South is the animus of this work. Nothing can be farther from the truth. No one has a deeper love forevery part of our common country than I, and no one to-day will make moreefforts and sacrifices to bring the South to the same plane of social andmaterial development with the rest of the Nation than I will. If I couldsee that the sufferings at Andersonville and elsewhere contributed in anyconsiderable degree to that end, and I should not regret that they hadbeen. Blood and tears mark every step in the progress of the race, andhuman misery seems unavoidable in securing human advancement. But I amnaturally embittered by the fruitlessness, as well as the uselessness ofthe misery of Andersonville. There was never the least military or otherreason for inflicting all that wretchedness upon men, and, as far asmortal eye can discern, no earthly good resulted from the martyrdom ofthose tens of thousands. I wish I could see some hope that theirwantonly shed blood has sown seeds that will one day blossom, and bear arich fruitage of benefit to mankind, but it saddens me beyond expressionthat I can not. 

The years 1864-5 were a season of desperate battles, but in that timemany more Union soldiers were slain behind the Rebel armies, bystarvation and exposure, than were killed in front of them by cannon andrifle. The country has heard much of the heroism and sacrifices of thoseloyal youths who fell on the field of battle; but it has heard little ofthe still greater number who died in prison pen. It knows full well howgrandly her sons met death in front of the serried ranks of treason, andbut little of the sublime firmness with which they endured unto thedeath, all that the ingenious cruelty of their foes could inflict uponthem while in captivity. 

It is to help supply this deficiency that this book is written. It is amite contributed to the better remembrance by their countrymen of thosewho in this way endured and died that the Nation might live. It is anoffering of testimony to future generations of the measureless cost ofthe expiation of a national sin, and of the preservation of our nationalunity. 

This is all. I know I speak for all those still living comrades who wentwith me through the scenes that I have attempted to describe, when I saythat we have no revenges to satisfy, no hatreds to appease. We do notask that anyone shall be punished. We only desire that the Nation shallrecognize and remember the grand fidelity of our dead comrades, and takeabundant care that they shall not have died in vain. 

For the great mass of Southern people we have only the kindliest feeling. We but hate a vicious social system, the lingering shadow of a darkerage, to which they yield, and which, by elevating bad men to power, hasproved their own and their country's bane. 

The following story does not claim to be in any sense a history ofSouthern prisons. It is simply a record of the experience of oneindividual--one boy--who staid all the time with his comrades inside theprison, and had no better opportunities for gaining information than anyother of his 60, 000 companions. 

The majority of the illustrations in this work are from the skilledpencil of Captain O. J. Hopkins, of Toledo, who served through the war inthe ranks of the Forty-second Ohio. His army experience has been ofpeculiar value to the work, as it has enabled him to furnish a series ofillustrations whose life-like fidelity of action, pose and detail areadmirable. 

Some thirty of the pictures, including the frontispiece, and theallegorical illustrations of War and Peace, are from the atelier of Mr. O. Reich, Cincinnati, O. 

A word as to the spelling: Having always been an ardent believer in thereformation of our present preposterous system--or rather, no system--oforthography, I am anxious to do whatever lies in my power to promote it. In the following pages the spelling is simplified to the last degreeallowed by Webster. I hope that the time is near when even that advancedspelling reformer will be left far in the rear by the progress of apeople thoroughly weary of longer slavery to the orthographicalabsurdities handed down to us from a remote and grossly unlearnedancestry. 

Toledo, O. , Dec. 10, 1879. 

JOHN McELROY. 

We wait beneath the furnace blastThe pangs of transformation;Not painlessly doth God recastAnd mold anew the nation. Hot burns the fireWhere wrongs expire;Nor spares the handThat from the landUproots the ancient evil. 

The hand-breadth cloud the sages fearedIts bloody rain is dropping;The poison plant the fathers sparedAll else is overtopping. East, West, South, North, It curses the earth;All justice dies, And fraud and liesLive only in its shadow. 

Then let the selfish lip be dumbAnd hushed the breath of sighing;Before the joy of peace must comeThe pains of purifying. God give us graceEach in his placeTo bear his lot, And, murmuring not, Endure and wait and labor!

WHITTIER

ANDERSONVILLE

A STORY OF REBEL MILITARY PRISONS

CHAPTER I. 

A STRANGE LAND--THE HEART OF THE APPALACHIANS--THE GATEWAY OF AN EMPIRE--A SEQUESTERED VALE, AND A PRIMITIVE, ARCADIAN, NON-PROGRESSIVE PEOPLE. 

A low, square, plainly-hewn stone, set near the summit of the easternapproach to the formidable natural fortress of Cumberland Gap, indicatesthe boundaries of--the three great States of Virginia, Kentucky andTennessee. It is such a place as, remembering the old Greek and Romanmyths and superstitions, one would recognize as fitting to mark theconfines of the territories of great masses of strong, aggressive, andfrequently conflicting peoples. There the god Terminus should have hadone of his chief temples, where his shrine would be shadowed by barriersrising above the clouds, and his sacred solitude guarded from the rudeinvasion of armed hosts by range on range of battlemented rocks, crowningalmost inaccessible mountains, interposed across every approach from theusual haunts of men. 

Roundabout the land is full of strangeness and mystery. The throes ofsome great convulsion of Nature are written on the face of the fourthousand square miles of territory, of which Cumberland Gap is thecentral point. Miles of granite mountains are thrust up like giantwalls, hundreds of feet high, and as smooth and regular as the sideof a monument. 

Huge, fantastically-shaped rocks abound everywhere--sometimes rising intopinnacles on lofty summits--sometimes hanging over the verge of beetlingcliffs, as if placed there in waiting for a time when they could behurled down upon the path of an advancing army, and sweep it away. 

Large streams of water burst out in the most unexpected planes, frequently far up mountain sides, and fall in silver veils upon stonesbeaten round by the ceaseless dash for ages. Caves, rich in quaintlyformed stalactites and stalagmites, and their recesses filled withmetallic salts of the most powerful and diverse natures; break themountain sides at frequent intervals. Everywhere one is met by surprisesand anomalies. Even the rank vegetation is eccentric, and as prone todevelop into bizarre forms as are the rocks and mountains. 

The dreaded panther ranges through the primeval, rarely trodden forests;every crevice in the rocks has for tenants rattlesnakes or stealthycopperheads, while long, wonderfully swift "blue racers" haunt the edgesof the woods, and linger around the fields to chill his blood who catchesa glimpse of their upreared heads, with their great, balefully brighteyes, and "white-collar" encircled throats. 

The human events happening here have been in harmony with the naturalones. It has always been a land of conflict. In 1540--339 years ago--De Soto, in that energetic but fruitless search for gold which occupiedhis later years, penetrated to this region, and found it the fastness ofthe Xualans, a bold, aggressive race, continually warring with itsneighbors. When next the white man reached the country--a century and ahalf later--he found the Xualans had been swept away by the conqueringCherokees, and he witnessed there the most sanguinary contest betweenIndians of which our annals give any account--a pitched battle two daysin duration, between the invading Shawnees, who lorded it over what isnow Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana--and the Cherokees, who dominated thecountry the southeast of the Cumberland range. Again the Cherokees werevictorious, and the discomfited Shawnees retired north of the Gap. 

Then the white man delivered battle for the possession the land, andbought it with the lives of many gallant adventurers. Half a centurylater Boone and his hardy companion followed, and forced their way intoKentucky. 

Another half century saw the Gap the favorite haunt of the greatest ofAmerican bandits--the noted John A. Murrell--and his gang. Theyinfested the country for years, now waylaying the trader or droverthreading his toilsome way over the lone mountains, now descending uponsome little town, to plunder its stores and houses. 

At length Murrell and his band were driven out, and sought a new field ofoperations on the Lower Mississippi. They left germs behind them, however, that developed into horse thieve counterfeiters, and later intoguerrillas and bushwhackers. 

When the Rebellion broke out the region at once became the theater ofmilitary operations. Twice Cumberland Gap was seized by the Rebels, andtwice was it wrested away from them. In 1861 it was the point whenceZollicoffer launched out with his legions to "liberate Kentucky, " and itwas whither they fled, beaten and shattered, after the disasters of WildCat and Mill Springs. In 1862 Kirby Smith led his army through the Gapon his way to overrun Kentucky and invade the North. Three months laterhis beaten forces sought refuge from their pursuers behind itsimpregnable fortifications. Another year saw Burnside burst through theGap with a conquering force and redeem loyal East Tennessee from itsRebel oppressors. 

Had the South ever been able to separate from the North the boundarywould have been established along this line. 

Between the main ridge upon which Cumberland Gap is situated, and thenext range on the southeast which runs parallel with it, is a narrow, long, very fruitful valley, walled in on either side for a hundred milesby tall mountains as a City street is by high buildings. It is calledPowell's Valley. In it dwell a simple, primitive people, shut out fromthe world almost as much as if they lived in New Zealand, and with thespeech, manners and ideas that their fathers brought into the Valley whenthey settled it a century ago. There has been but little change sincethen. The young men who have annually driven cattle to the distantmarkets in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, have brought back occasionalstray bits of finery for the "women folks, " and the latest improvedfire-arms for themselves, but this is about all the innovations theprogress of the world has been allowed to make. Wheeled vehicles arealmost unknown; men and women travel on horseback as they did a centuryago, the clothing is the product of the farm and the busy looms of thewomen, and life is as rural and Arcadian as any ever described in apastoral. The people are rich in cattle, hogs, horses, sheep and theproducts of the field. The fat soil brings forth the substantials oflife in opulent plenty. Having this there seems to be little care formore. Ambition nor avarice, nor yet craving after luxury, disturb theircontented souls or drag them away from the non-progressive round ofsimple life bequeathed them by their fathers. 

CHAPTER II. 

SCARCITY OF FOOD FOR THE ARMY--RAID FOR FORAGE--ENCOUNTER WIT THE REBELS--SHARP CAVALRY FIGHT--DEFEAT OF THE "JOHNNIES"--POWELL'S VALLEY OPENEDUP. 

As the Autumn of 1863 advanced towards Winter the difficulty of supplyingthe forces concentrated around Cumberland Gap--as well as the rest ofBurnside's army in East Tennessee--became greater and greater. The baseof supplies was at Camp Nelson, near Lexington, Ky. , one hundred andeighty miles from the Gap, and all that the Army used had to be hauledthat distance by mule teams over roads that, in their best state werewretched, and which the copious rains and heavy traffic had renderedwell-nigh impassable. All the country to our possession had been drainedof its stock of whatever would contribute to the support of man or beast. That portion of Powell's Valley extending from the Gap into Virginia wasstill in the hands of the Rebels; its stock of products was as yet almostexempt from military contributions. Consequently a raid was projected toreduce the Valley to our possession, and secure its much needed stores. It was guarded by the Sixty-fourth Virginia, a mounted regiment, made upof the young men of the locality, who had then been in the service abouttwo years. 

Maj. C. H. Beer's third Battalion, Sixteenth Illinois Cavalry--fourcompanies, each about 75 strong--was sent on the errand of driving outthe Rebels and opening up the Valley for our foraging teams. The writerwas invited to attend the excursion. As he held the honorable, but notvery lucrative position of "high, private" in Company L, of theBattalion, and the invitation came from his Captain, he did not feel atliberty to decline. He went, as private soldiers have been in the habitof doing ever since the days of the old Centurion, who said with thecharacteristic boastfulness of one of the lower grades of commissionedofficers when he happens to be a snob:

 For I am also a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go; and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 

Rather "airy" talk that for a man who nowadays would take rank withCaptains of infantry. 

Three hundred of us responded to the signal of "boots and saddles, "buckled on three hundred more or less trusty sabers and revolvers, saddled three hundred more or less gallant steeds, came into line "ascompanies" with the automatic listlessness of the old soldiers, "countedoff by fours" in that queer gamut-running style that makes a company ofmen "counting off"--each shouting a number in a different voice from hisneighbor--sound like running the scales on some great organ badly out oftune; something like this:

One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four. 

Then, as the bugle sounded "Right forward! fours right!" we moved off ata walk through the melancholy mist that soaked through the very fiber ofman and horse, and reduced the minds of both to a condition of limpindifference as to things past, present and future. 

Whither we were going we knew not, nor cared. Such matters had longsince ceased to excite any interest. A cavalryman soon recognizes as theleast astonishing thing in his existence the signal to "Fall in!" andstart somewhere. He feels that he is the "Poor Joe" of the Army--underperpetual orders to "move on. "

Down we wound over the road that zig-tagged through the forts, batteriesand rifle-pits covering the eastern ascent to the Flap-past the wonderfulMurrell Spring--so-called because the robber chief had killed, as hestooped to drink of its crystal waters, a rich drover, whom he waspretending to pilot through the mountains--down to where the "Virginiaroad" turned off sharply to the left and entered Powell's Valley. Themist had become a chill, dreary rain, through, which we plodded silently, until night closed in around us some ten miles from the Gap. As wehalted to go into camp, an indignant Virginian resented the invasion ofthe sacred soil by firing at one of the guards moving out to his place. The guard looked at the fellow contemptuously, as if he hated to wastepowder on a man who had no better sense than to stay out in such a rain, when he could go in-doors, and the bushwhacker escaped, without even areturn shot. 

Fires were built, coffee made, horses rubbed, and we laid down with feetto the fire to get what sleep we could. 

Before morning we were awakened by the bitter cold. It had cleared offduring the night and turned so cold that everything was frozen stiff. This was better than the rain, at all events. A good fire and a hot cupof coffee would make the cold quite endurable. 

At daylight the bugle sounded "Right forward! fours right!" again, andthe 300 of us resumed our onward plod over the rocky, cedar-crownedhills. 

In the meantime, other things were taking place elsewhere. Our esteemedfriends of the Sixty-fourth Virginia, who were in camp at the little townof Jonesville, about 40 miles from the Gap, had learned of our startingup the Valley to drive them out, and they showed that warm reciprocitycharacteristic of the Southern soldier, by mounting and starting down theValley to drive us out. Nothing could be more harmonious, it will beperceived. Barring the trifling divergence of yews as to who was todrive and who be driven, there was perfect accord in our ideas. 

Our numbers were about equal. If I were to say that they considerablyoutnumbered us, I would be following the universal precedent. No soldier-high or low-ever admitted engaging an equal or inferior forceof the enemy. 

About 9 o'clock in the morning--Sunday--they rode through the streets ofJonesville on their way to give us battle. It was here that most of themembers of the Regiment lived. Every man, woman and child in the townwas related in some way to nearly every one of the soldiers. 

The women turned out to wave their fathers, husbands, brothers and loverson to victory. The old men gathered to give parting counsel andencouragement to their sons and kindred. The Sixty-fourth rode away towhat hope told them would be a glorious victory. 

At noon we are still straggling along without much attempt at soldierlyorder, over the rough, frozen hill-sides. It is yet bitterly cold, andmen and horses draw themselves together, as if to expose as littlesurface as possible to the unkind elements. Not a word had been spokenby any one for hours. 

The head of the column has just reached the top of the hill, and the restof us are strung along for a quarter of a mile or so back. 

Suddenly a few shots ring out upon the frosty air from the carbines ofthe advance. The general apathy is instantly, replaced by keenattention, and the boys instinctively range themselves into fours--thecavalry unit of action. The Major, who is riding about the middle of thefirst Company--I--dashes to the front. A glance seems to satisfy him, for he turns in his saddle and his voice rings out:

"Company I! FOURS LEFT INTO LINE!--MARCH!!"

The Company swings around on the hill-top like a great, jointed toysnake. As the fours come into line on a trot, we see every man draw hissaber and revolver. The Company raises a mighty cheer and dashesforward. 

Company K presses forward to the ground Company I has just left, thefours sweep around into line, the sabers and revolvers come outspontaneously, the men cheer and the Company flings itself forward. 

All this time we of Company L can see nothing except what the companiesahead of us are doing. We are wrought up to the highest pitch. AsCompany K clears its ground, we press forward eagerly. Now we go intoline just as we raise the hill, and as my four comes around, I catch ahurried glimpse through a rift in the smoke of a line of butternut andgray clad men a hundred yards or so away. Their guns are at their faces, and I see the smoke and fire spurt from the muzzles. At the same instantour sabers and revolvers are drawn. We shout in a frenzy of excitement, and the horses spring forward as if shot from a bow. 

I see nothing more until I reach the place where the Rebel line stood. Then I find it is gone. Looking beyond toward the bottom of the hill, Isee the woods filled with Rebels, flying in disorder and our men yellingin pursuit. This is the portion of the line which Companies I and Kstruck. Here and there are men in butternut clothing, prone on thefrozen ground, wounded and dying. I have just time to notice closely onemiddle-aged man lying almost under my horse's feet. He has received acarbine bullet through his head and his blood colors a great space aroundhim. 

One brave man, riding a roan horse, attempts to rally his companions. He halts on a little knoll, wheels his horse to face us, and waves hishat to draw his companions to him. A tall, lank fellow in the next fourto me--who goes by the nickname of "'Leven Yards"--aims his carbine athim, and, without checking his horse's pace, fires. The heavy Sharpe'sbullet tears a gaping hole through the Rebel's heart. He drops from hissaddle, his life-blood runs down in little rills on either side of theknoll, and his riderless horse dashes away in a panic. 

At this instant comes an order for the Company to break up into fours andpress on through the forest in pursuit. My four trots off to the road atthe right. A Rebel bugler, who hag been cut off, leaps his horse intothe road in front of us. We all fire at him on the impulse of themoment. He falls from his horse with a bullet through his back. CompanyM, which has remained in column as a reserve, is now thundering up closebehind at a gallop. Its seventy-five powerful horses are spurning thesolid earth with steel-clad hoofs. The man will be ground into ashapeless mass if left where he has fallen. We spring from our horsesand drag him into a fence corner; then remount and join in the pursuit. 

This happened on the summit of Chestnut Ridge, fifteen miles fromJonesville. 

Late in the afternoon the anxious watchers at Jonesville saw a singlefugitive urging his well-nigh spent horse down the slope of the hilltoward town. In an agony of anxiety they hurried forward to meet him andlearn his news. 

The first messenger who rushed into Job's presence to announce thebeginning of the series of misfortunes which were to afflict the uprightman of Uz is a type of all the cowards who, before or since then, havebeen the first to speed away from the field of battle to spread the newsof disaster. He said:

 "And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. "

So this fleeing Virginian shouted to his expectant friends:

"The boys are all cut to pieces; I'm the only one that got away. "

The terrible extent of his words was belied a little later, by theappearance on the distant summit of the hill of a considerable mob offugitives, flying at the utmost speed of their nearly exhausted horses. As they came on down the hill as almost equally disorganized crowd ofpursuers appeared on the summit, yelling in voices hoarse with continuedshouting, and pouring an incessant fire of carbine and revolver bulletsupon the hapless men of the Sixty-fourth Virginia. 

The two masses of men swept on through the town. Beyond it, the roadbranched in several directions, the pursued scattered on each of these, and the worn-out pursuers gave up the chase. 

Returning to Jonesville, we took an account of stock, and found that wewere "ahead" one hundred and fifteen prisoners, nearly that many horses, and a considerable quantity of small arms. How many of the enemy hadbeen killed and wounded could not be told, as they were scattered overthe whole fifteen miles between where the fight occurred and the pursuitended. Our loss was trifling. 

Comparing notes around the camp-fires in the evening, we found that oursuccess had been owing to the Major's instinct, his grasp of thesituation, and the soldierly way in which he took advantage of it. Whenhe reached the summit of the hill he found the Rebel line nearly formedand ready for action. A moment's hesitation might have been fatal to us. At his command Company I went into line with the thought-like celerity oftrained cavalry, and instantly dashed through the right of the Rebelline. Company K followed and plunged through the Rebel center, and whenwe of Company L arrived on the ground, and charged the left, the lastvestige of resistance was swept away. The whole affair did not probablyoccupy more than fifteen minutes. 

This was the way Powell's Valley was opened to our foragers. 

CHAPTER III. 

LIVING OFF THE ENEMY--REVELING IN THE FATNESS OF THE COUNTRY--SOLDIERLYPURVEYING AND CAMP COOKERY--SUSCEPTIBLE TEAMSTERS AND THEIR TENDENCY TOFLIGHTINESS--MAKING SOLDIER'S BED. 

For weeks we rode up and down--hither and thither--along the length ofthe narrow, granite-walled Valley; between mountains so lofty that thesun labored slowly over them in the morning, occupying half the forenoonin getting to where his rays would reach the stream that ran through theValley's center. Perpetual shadow reigned on the northern and westernfaces of these towering Nights--not enough warmth and sunshine reachingthem in the cold months to check the growth of the ever-lengtheningicicles hanging from the jutting cliffs, or melt the arabesquefrost-forms with which the many dashing cascades decorated the adjacentrocks and shrubbery. Occasionally we would see where some little streamran down over the face of the bare, black rocks for many hundred feet, and then its course would be a long band of sheeny white, like a greatrich, spotless scarf of satin, festooning the war-grimed walls of someold castle. 

Our duty now was to break up any nuclei of concentration that the Rebelsmight attempt to form, and to guard our foragers--that is, the teamstersand employee of the Quartermaster's Department--who were loading graininto wagons and hauling it away. 

This last was an arduous task. There is no man in the world that needsas much protection as an Army teamster. He is worse in this respect thana New England manufacturer, or an old maid on her travels. He is givento sudden fears and causeless panics. Very innocent cedars have afashion of assuming in his eyes the appearance of desperate Rebels armedwith murderous guns, and there is no telling what moment a rock may takesuch a form as to freeze his young blood, and make each particular hairstand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. One has to beparticular about snapping caps in his neighborhood, and give to himcareful warning before discharging a carbine to clean it. His firstimpulse, when anything occurs to jar upon his delicate nerves, is to cuthis wheel-mule loose and retire with the precipitation of a man having anappointment to keep and being behind time. There is no man who can getas much speed out of a mule as a teamster falling back from theneighborhood of heavy firing. 

This nervous tremor was not peculiar to the engineers of ourtransportation department. It was noticeable in the gentry who cartedthe scanty provisions of the Rebels. One of Wheeler's cavalrymen told methat the brigade to which he belonged was one evening ordered to move atdaybreak. The night was rainy, and it was thought best to discharge theguns and reload before starting. Unfortunately, it was neglected toinform the teamsters of this, and at the first discharge they varnishedfrom the scene with such energy that it was over a week before thebrigade succeeded in getting them back again. 

Why association with the mule should thus demoralize a man, has alwaysbeen a puzzle to me, for while the mule, as Col. Ingersoll has remarked, is an animal without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, he is stillnot a coward by any means. It is beyond dispute that a full-grown andactive lioness once attacked a mule in the grounds of the CincinnatiZoological Garden, and was ignominiously beaten, receiving injuries fromwhich she died shortly afterward. 

The apparition of a badly-scared teamster urging one of his wheel mulesat break-neck speed over the rough ground, yelling for protection against"them Johnnies, " who had appeared on some hilltop in sight of where hewas gathering corn, was an almost hourly occurrence. Of course the squaddispatched to his assistance found nobody. 

Still, there were plenty of Rebels in the country, and they hung aroundour front, exchanging shots with us at long taw, and occasionallytreating us to a volley at close range, from some favorable point. But we had the decided advantage of them at this game. Our Sharpe'scarbines were much superior in every way to their Enfields. They wouldshoot much farther, and a great deal more rapidly, so that the Virginianswere not long in discovering that they were losing more than they gainedin this useless warfare. 

Once they played a sharp practical joke upon us. Copper River is a deep, exceedingly rapid mountain stream, with a very slippery rocky bottom. The Rebels blockaded a ford in such a way that it was almost impossiblefor a horse to keep his feet. Then they tolled us off in pursuit of asmall party to this ford. When we came to it there was a light line ofskirmishers on the opposite bank, who popped away at us industriously. Our boys formed in line, gave the customary, cheer, and dashed in tocarry the ford at a charge. As they did so at least one-half of thehorses went down as if they were shot, and rolled over their riders inthe swift running, ice-cold waters. The Rebels yelled a triumphantlaugh, as they galloped away, and the laugh was re-echoed by our fellows, who were as quick to see the joke as the other side. We tried to geteven with them by a sharp chase, but we gave it up after a few miles, without having taken any prisoners. 

But, after all, there was much to make our sojourn in the Valleyendurable. Though we did not wear fine linen, we fared sumptuously--forsoldiers--every day. The cavalryman is always charged by the infantryand artillery with having a finer and surer scent for the good things inthe country than any other man in the service. He is believed to have aninstinct that will unfailingly lead him, in the dankest night, to theroosting place of the most desirable poultry, and after he has camped ina neighborhood for awhile it would require a close chemical analysis tofind a trace of ham. 

We did our best to sustain the reputation of our arm of the service. We found the most delicious hams packed away in the ash-houses. They were small, and had that; exquisite nutty flavor, peculiar tomast-fed bacon. Then there was an abundance of the delightful littleapple known as "romanites. " There were turnips, pumpkins, cabbages, potatoes, and the usual products of the field in plenty, even profusion. The corn in the fields furnished an ample supply of breadstuff. Wecarried it to and ground it in the quaintest, rudest little mills thatcan be imagined outside of the primitive affairs by which the women ofArabia coarsely powder the grain for the family meal. Sometimes themill would consist only of four stout posts thrust into the ground atthe edge of some stream. A line of boulders reaching diagonally acrossthe stream answered for a dam, by diverting a portion of the volume ofwater to a channel at the side, where it moved a clumsily constructedwheel, that turned two small stones, not larger than good-sizedgrindstones. Over this would be a shed made by resting poles in forkedposts stuck into the ground, and covering these with clapboards held inplace by large flat stones. They resembled the mills of the gods--ingrinding slowly. It used to seem that a healthy man could eat the mealfaster than they ground it. 

But what savory meals we used to concoct around the campfires, out of therich materials collected during the day's ride! Such stews, such soups, such broils, such wonderful commixtures of things diverse in nature andantagonistic in properties such daring culinary experiments in combiningmaterials never before attempted to be combined. The French say ofuntasteful arrangement of hues in dress "that the colors swear at eachother. " I have often thought the same thing of the heterogeneities thatgo to make up a soldier's pot-a feu. 

But for all that they never failed to taste deliciously after a longday's ride. They were washed down by a tincupful of coffee strong enoughto tan leather, then came a brier-wood pipeful of fragrant kinnikinnic, and a seat by the ruddy, sparkling fire of aromatic cedar logs, thatdiffused at once warmth, and spicy, pleasing incense. A chat over theevents of the day, and the prospect of the morrow, the wonderful meritsof each man's horse, and the disgusting irregularities of the mails fromhome, lasted until the silver-voiced bugle rang out the sweet, mournfultattoo of the Regulations, to the flowing cadences of which the boys hadarranged the absurdly incongruous words:

 "S-a-y--D-e-u-t-c-h-e-r-will-you fight-mit Sigel! Zwei-glass of lager-bier, ja! ja! JA!"

Words were fitted to all the calls, which generally bore somerelativeness to the sigmal, but these were as, destitute of congruity asof sense. 

Tattoo always produces an impression of extreme loneliness. As itsweird, half-availing notes ring out and are answered back from thedistant rocks shrouded in night, and perhaps concealing the lurking foe, the soldier remembers that he is far away from home and friends--deep inthe enemy's country, encompassed on every hand by those in deadlyhostility to him, who are perhaps even then maturing the preparations forhis destruction. 

As the tattoo sounds, the boys arise from around the fire, visit thehorse line, see that their horses are securely tied, rub off from thefetlocks and legs such specks of mud as may have escaped the cleaning inthe early evening, and if possible, smuggle their faithful four-footedfriends a few ears of corn, or another bunch of hay. 

If not too tired, and everything else is favorable, the cavalryman hasprepared himself a comfortable couch for the night. He always sleepswith a chum. The two have gathered enough small tufts of pine or cedarto make a comfortable, springy, mattress-like foundation. On this islaid the poncho or rubber blanket. Next comes one of their overcoats, and upon this they lie, covering themselves with the two blankets and theother overcoat, their feet towards the fire, their boots at the foot, andtheir belts, with revolver, saber and carbine, at the sides of the bed. It is surprising what an amount of comfort a man can get out of such acouch, and how, at an alarm, he springs from it, almost instantly dressedand armed. 

Half an hour after tattoo the bugle rings out another sadly sweet strain, that hath a dying sound. 

CHAPTER IV. 

A BITTER COLD MORNING AND A WARM AWAKENING--TROUBLE ALL ALONG THE LINE--FIERCE CONFLICTS, ASSAULTS AND DEFENSE--PROLONGED AND DESPERATE STRUGGLEENDING WITH A SURRENDER. 

The night had been the most intensely cold that the country had known formany years. Peach and other tender trees had been killed by the frostyrigor, and sentinels had been frozen to death in our neighborhood. Thedeep snow on which we made our beds, the icy covering of the streams nearus, the limbs of the trees above us, had been cracking with loud noisesall night, from the bitter cold. 

We were camped around Jonesville, each of the four companies lying on oneof the roads leading from the town. Company L lay about a mile from theCourt House. On a knoll at the end of the village toward us, and at apoint where two roads separated, --one of which led to us, --stood athree-inch Rodman rifle, belonging to the Twenty-second Ohio Battery. It and its squad of eighteen men, under command of Lieutenant Alger andSergeant Davis, had been sent up to us a few days before from the Gap. 

The comfortless gray dawn was crawling sluggishly over the mountain-tops, as if numb as the animal and vegetable life which had been shrinking allthe long hours under the fierce chill. 

The Major's bugler had saluted the morn with the lively, ringingtarr-r-r-a-ta-ara of the Regulation reveille, and the company buglers, as fast as they could thaw out their mouth-pieces, were answering him. 

I lay on my bed, dreading to get up, and yet not anxious to lie still. It was a question which would be the more uncomfortable. I turned over, to see if there was not another position in which it would be warmer, and began wishing for the thousandth time that the efforts for theamelioration of the horrors of warfare would progress to such a point asto put a stop to all Winter soldiering, so that a fellow could go home assoon as cold weather began, sit around a comfortable stove in a countrystore; and tell camp stories until the Spring was far enough advanced tolet him go back to the front wearing a straw hat and a linen duster. 

Then I began wondering how much longer I would dare lie there, before theOrderly Sergeant would draw me out by the heels, and accompany theoperation with numerous unkind and sulphurous remarks. 

This cogitation, was abruptly terminated by hearing an excited shout fromthe Captain:

"Turn Out!--COMPANY L!! TURNOUT ! ! !"

Almost at the same instant rose that shrill, piercing Rebel yell, whichone who has once heard it rarely forgets, and this was followed by acrashing volley from apparently a regiment of rifles. 

I arose-promptly. 

There was evidently something of more interest on hand than the weather. 

Cap, overcoat, boots and revolver belt went on, and eyes opened at aboutthe same instant. 

As I snatched up my carbine, I looked out in front, and the whole woodsappeared to be full of Rebels, rushing toward us, all yelling and somefiring. My Captain and First Lieutenant had taken up position on theright front of the tents, and part of the boys were running up to form aline alongside them. The Second Lieutenant had stationed himself on aknoll on the left front, and about a third of the company was rallyingaround him. 

My chum was a silent, sententious sort of a chap, and as we ran forwardto the Captain's line, he remarked earnestly:

"Well: this beats hell!"

I thought he had a clear idea of the situation. 

All this occupied an inappreciably short space of time. The Rebels hadnot stopped to reload, but were rushing impetuously toward us. We gavethem a hot, rolling volley from our carbines. Many fell, more stopped toload and reply, but the mass surged straight forward at us. Then ourfire grew so deadly that they showed a disposition to cover themselvesbehind the rocks and trees. Again they were urged forward; and a body ofthem headed by their Colonel, mounted on a white horse, pushed forwardthrough the gap between us and the Second Lieutenant. The Rebel Coloneldashed up to the Second Lieutenant, and ordered him to surrender. Thelatter-a gallant old graybeard--cursed the Rebel bitterly and snapped hisnow empty revolver in his face. The Colonel fired and killed him, whereupon his squad, with two of its Sergeants killed and half itsnumbers on the ground, surrendered. 

The Rebels in our front and flank pressed us with equal closeness. It seemed as if it was absolutely impossible to check their rush for aninstant, and as we saw the fate of our companions the Captain gave theword for every man to look out for himself. We ran back a littledistance, sprang over the fence into the fields, and rushed toward Town, the Rebels encouraging us to make good time by a sharp fire into ourbacks from the fence. 

While we were vainly attempting to stem the onset of the column dashedagainst us, better success was secured elsewhere. Another column sweptdown the other road, upon which there was only an outlying picket. Thishad to come back on the run before the overwhelming numbers, and theRebels galloped straight for the three-inch Rodman. Company M was thefirst to get saddled and mounted, and now came up at a steady, swinginggallop, in two platoons, saber and revolver in hand, and led by twoSergeants-Key and McWright, --printer boys from Bloomington, Illinois. They divined the object of the Rebel dash, and strained every nerve toreach the gun first. The Rebels were too near, and got the gun andturned it. Before they could fire it, Company M struck them headlong, but they took the terrible impact without flinching, and for a fewminutes there was fierce hand-to-hand work, with sword and pistol. The Rebel leader sank under a half-dozen simultaneous wounds, and felldead almost under the gun. Men dropped from their horses each instant, and the riderless steeds fled away. The scale of victory was turned bythe Major dashing against the Rebel left flank at the head of Company I, and a portion of the artillery squad. The Rebels gave ground slowly, and were packed into a dense mass in the lane up which they had charged. After they had been crowded back, say fifty yards, word was passedthrough our men to open to the right and left on the sides of the road. The artillerymen had turned the gun and loaded it with a solid shot. Instantly a wide lane opened through our ranks; the man with the lanyarddrew the fatal cord, fire burst from the primer and the muzzle, the longgun sprang up and recoiled, and there seemed to be a demoniac yell in itsear-splitting crash, as the heavy ball left the mouth, and tore itsbloody way through the bodies of the struggling mass of men and horses. 

This ended it. The Rebels gave way in disorder, and our men fell back togive the gun an opportunity to throw shell and canister. 

The Rebels now saw that we were not to be run over like a field ofcornstalks, and they fell back to devise further tactics, giving us abreathing spell to get ourselves in shape for defense. 

The dullest could see that we were in a desperate situation. Criticalpositions were no new experience to us, as they never are to a cavalrycommand after a few months in the field, but, though the pitcher goesoften to the well, it is broken at last, and our time was evidently athand. The narrow throat of the Valley, through which lay the road backto the Gap, was held by a force of Rebels evidently much superior to ourown, and strongly posted. The road was a slender, tortuous one, windingthrough rocks and gorges. Nowhere was there room enough to move witheven a platoon front against the enemy, and this precluded all chances ofcutting out. The best we could do was a slow, difficult movement, incolumn of fours, and this would have been suicide. On the other side ofthe Town the Rebels were massed stronger, while to the right and leftrose the steep mountain sides. We were caught-trapped as surely as a ratever was in a wire trap. 

As we learned afterwards, a whole division of cavalry, under command ofthe noted Rebel, Major General Sam Jones, had been sent to effect ourcapture, to offset in a measure Longstreet's repulse at Knoxville. A gross overestimate of our numbers had caused the sending of so largea force on this errand, and the rough treatment we gave the two columnsthat attacked us first confirmed the Rebel General's ideas of ourstrength, and led him to adopt cautious tactics, instead of crushing usout speedily, by a determined advance of all parts of his encirclinglines. 

The lull in the fight did not last long. A portion of the Rebel line onthe east rushed forward to gain a more commanding position. 

We concentrated in that direction and drove it back, the Rodman assistingwith a couple of well-aimed shells. --This was followed by a similar butmore successful attempt by another part of the Rebel line, and so it wenton all day--the Rebels rushing up first on this side, and then on that, and we, hastily collecting at the exposed points, seeking to drive themback. We were frequently successful; we were on the inside, and had theadvantage of the short interior lines, so that our few men and ourbreech-loaders told to a good purpose. 

There were frequent crises in the struggle, that at some times gaveencouragement, but never hope. Once a determined onset was made from theEast, and was met by the equally determined resistance of nearly ourwhole force. Our fire was so galling that a large number of our foescrowded into a house on a knoll, and making loopholes in its walls, beganreplying to us pretty sharply. We sent word to our faithfulartillerists, who trained the gun upon the house. The first shellscreamed over the roof, and burst harmlessly beyond. We suspended fireto watch the next. It crashed through the side; for an instant all wasdeathly still; we thought it had gone on through. Then came a roar and acrash; the clapboards flew off the roof, and smoke poured out;panic-stricken Rebels rushed from the doors and sprang from the windows--like bees from a disturbed hive; the shell had burst among theconfined mass of men inside! We afterwards heard that twenty-five werekilled there. 

At another time a considerable force of rebels gained the cover of afence in easy range of our main force. Companies L and K were ordered tocharge forward on foot and dislodge them. Away we went, under a firethat seemed to drop a man at every step. A hundred yards in front of theRebels was a little cover, and behind this our men lay down as if by oneimpulse. Then came a close, desperate duel at short range. It was aquestion between Northern pluck and Southern courage, as to which couldstand the most punishment. Lying as flat as possible on the crustedsnow, only raising the head or body enough to load and aim, the men onboth sides, with their teeth set, their glaring eyes fastened on the foe, their nerves as tense as tightly-drawn steel wires, rained shot on eachother as fast as excited hands could crowd cartridges into the guns anddischarge them. 

Not a word was said. 

The shallower enthusiasm that expresses itself in oaths and shouts hadgiven way to the deep, voiceless rage of men in a death grapple. TheRebel line was a rolling torrent of flame, their bullets shrieked angrilyas they flew past, they struck the snow in front of us, and threw itscold flakes in faces that were white with the fires of consuming hate;they buried themselves with a dull thud in the quivering bodies of theenraged combatants. 

Minutes passed; they seemed hours. 

Would the villains, scoundrels, hell-hounds, sons of vipers never go?

At length a few Rebels sprang up and tried to fly. They were shot downinstantly. 

Then the whole line rose and ran!

The relief was so great that we jumped to our feet and cheered wildly, forgetting in our excitement to make use of our victory by shooting downour flying enemies. 

Nor was an element of fun lacking. A Second Lieutenant was ordered totake a party of skirmishers to the top of a hill and engage those of theRebels stationed on another hill-top across a ravine. He had but latelyjoined us from the Regular Army, where he was a Drill Sergeant. Naturally, he was very methodical in his way, and scorned to do otherwiseunder fire than he would upon the parade ground. He moved his littlecommand to the hill-top, in close order, and faced them to the front. The Johnnies received them with a yell and a volley, whereat the boyswinced a little, much to the Lieutenant's disgust, who swore at them;then had them count off with great deliberation, and deployed them ascoolly as if them was not an enemy within a hundred miles. After theline deployed, he "dressed" it, commanded "Front!" and "Begin, firing!"his attention was called another way for an instant, and when he lookedback again, there was not a man of his nicely formed skirmish linevisible. The logs and stones had evidently been put there for the use ofskirmishers, the boys thought, and in an instant they availed themselvesof their shelter. 

Never was there an angrier man than that Second Lieutenant; he brandishedhis saber and swore; he seemed to feel that all his soldierly reputationwas gone, but the boys stuck to their shelter for all that, informing himthat when the Rebels would stand out in the open field and take theirfire, they would likewise. 

Despite all our efforts, the Rebel line crawled up closer an closer tous; we were driven back from knoll to knoll, and from one fence afteranother. We had maintained the unequal struggle for eight hours; overone-fourth of our number were stretched upon the snow, killed or badlywounded. Our cartridges were nearly all gone; the cannon had fired itslast shot long ago, and having a blank cartridge left, had shot therammer at a gathering party of the enemy. 

Just as the Winter sun was going down upon a day of gloom the buglecalled us all up on the hillside. Then the Rebels saw for the first timehow few there were, and began an almost simultaneous charge all along theline. The Major raised piece of a shelter tent upon a pole. The linehalted. An officer rode out from it, followed by two privates. 

Approaching the Major, he said, "Who is in command this force?"

The Major replied: "I am. "

"Then, Sir, I demand your sword. "

"What is your rank, Sir!"

"I am Adjutant of the Sixty-fourth Virginia. "

The punctillious soul of the old "Regular"--for such the Major wasswelled up instantly, and he answered:

"By ---, sir, I will never surrender to my inferior in rank!"

The Adjutant reined his horse back. His two followers leveled theirpieces at the Major and waited orders to fire. They were covered by adozen carbines in the hands of our men. The Adjutant ordered his men to"recover arms, " and rode away with them. He presently returned with aColonel, and to him the Major handed his saber. 

As the men realized what was being done, the first thought of many ofthem was to snatch out the cylinder's of their revolvers, and the slidesof their carbines, and throw them away, so as to make the arms useless. 

We were overcome with rage and humiliation at being compelled to yield toan enemy whom we had hated so bitterly. As we stood there on the bleakmountain-side, the biting wind soughing through the leafless branches, the shadows of a gloomy winter night closing around us, the groans andshrieks of our wounded mingling with the triumphant yells of the Rebelsplundering our tents, it seemed as if Fate could press to man's lips nocup with bitterer dregs in it than this. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE REACTION--DEPRESSION--BITTING COLD--SHARP HUNGER AND SAD REFLEXION. 

 "Of being taken by the Insolent foe. "--Othello. 

The night that followed was inexpressibly dreary: The high-wroughtnervous tension, which had been protracted through the long hours thatthe fight lasted, was succeeded by a proportionate mental depression, such as naturally follows any strain upon the mind. This was intensifiedin our cases by the sharp sting of defeat, the humiliation of having toyield ourselves, our horses and our arms into the possession of theenemy, the uncertainty as to the future, and the sorrow we felt at theloss of so many of our comrades. 

Company L had suffered very severely, but our chief regret was for thegallant Osgood, our Second Lieutenant. He, above all others, was ourtrusted leader. The Captain and First Lieutenant were brave men, andgood enough soldiers, but Osgood was the one "whose adoption tried, wegrappled to our souls with hooks of steel. " There was never anydifficulty in getting all the volunteers he wanted for a scouting party. A quiet, pleasant spoken gentleman, past middle age, he looked muchbetter fitted for the office of Justice of the Peace, to which hisfellow-citizens of Urbana, Illinois, had elected and reelected him, thanto command a troop of rough riders in a great civil war. But none moregallant than he ever vaulted into saddle to do battle for the right. He went into the Army solely as a matter of principle, and did his dutywith the unflagging zeal of an olden Puritan fighting for liberty and hissoul's salvation. He was a superb horseman--as all the older Illinoisansare and, for all his two-score years and ten, he recognized few superiorsfor strength and activity in the Battalion. A radical, uncompromisingAbolitionist, he had frequently asserted that he would rather die thanyield to a Rebel, and he kept his word in this as in everything else. 

As for him, it was probably the way he desired to die. No one believedmore ardently than he that

 Whether on the scaffold high, Or in the battle's van; The fittest place for man to die, Is where he dies for man. 

Among the many who had lost chums and friends was Ned Johnson, of CompanyK. Ned was a young Englishman, with much of the suggestiveness of thebull-dog common to the lower class of that nation. His fist was readierthan his tongue. His chum, Walter Savage was of the same surly type. The two had come from England twelve years before, and had been togetherever since. Savage was killed in the struggle for the fence described inthe preceding chapter. Ned could not realize for a while that his friendwas dead. It was only when the body rapidly stiffened on its icy bed, and the eyes which had been gleaming deadly hate when he was strickendown were glazed over with the dull film of death, that he believed hewas gone from him forever. Then his rage was terrible. For the rest ofthe day he was at the head of every assault upon the enemy. His voicecould ever be heard above the firing, cursing the Rebels bitterly, andurging the boys to "Stand up to 'em! Stand right up to 'em! Don't givea inch! Let them have the best you got in the shop! Shoot low, anddon't waste a cartridge!"

When we surrendered, Ned seemed to yield sullenly to the inevitable. He threw his belt and apparently his revolver with it upon the snow. A guard was formed around us, and we gathered about the fires that werestarted. Ned sat apart, his arms folded, his head upon his breast, brooding bitterly upon Walter's death. A horseman, evidently a Colonelor General, clattered up to give some directions concerning us. At thesound of his voice Ned raised his head and gave him a swift glance; thegold stars upon the Rebel's collar led him to believe that he was thecommander of the enemy. Ned sprang to his feet, made a long strideforward, snatched from the breast of his overcoat the revolver he hadbeen hiding there, cocked it and leveled it at the Rebel's breast. Before he could pull the trigger Orderly Sergeant Charles Bentley, of hisCompany, who was watching him, leaped forward, caught his wrist and threwthe revolver up. Others joined in, took the weapon away, and handed itover to the officer, who then ordered us all to be searched for arms, and rode away. 

All our dejection could not make us forget that we were intensely hungry. We had eaten nothing all day. The fight began before we had time to getany breakfast, and of course there was no interval for refreshmentsduring the engagement. The Rebels were no better off than we, havingbeen marched rapidly all night in order to come upon us by daylight. 

Late in the evening a few sacks of meal were given us, and we took thefirst lesson in an art that long and painful practice afterward was tomake very familiar to us. We had nothing to mix the meal in, and itlooked as if we would have to eat it dry, until a happy thought strucksome one that our caps would do for kneading troughs. At once every capwas devoted to this. Getting water from an adjacent spring, each manmade a little wad of dough--unsalted--and spreading it upon a flat stoneor a chip, set it up in front of the fire to bake. As soon as it wasbrowned on one side, it was pulled off the stone, and the other sideturned to the fire. It was a very primitive way of cooking and I becamethoroughly disgusted with it. It was fortunate for me that I littledreamed that this was the way I should have to get my meals for the nextfifteen months. 

After somewhat of the edge had been taken off our hunger by this food, we crouched around the fires, talked over the events of the day, speculated as to what was to be done with us, and snatched such sleep asthe biting cold would permit. 

CHAPTER VI. 

"ON TO RICHMOND!"--MARCHING ON FOOT OVER THE MOUNTAINS--MY HORSE HAS ANEW RIDER--UNSOPHISTICATED MOUNTAIN GIRLS--DISCUSSING THE ISSUES OF THEWAR--PARTING WITH "HIATOGA. "

At dawn we were gathered together, more meal issued to us, which wecooked in the same way, and then were started under heavy guard to marchon foot over the mountains to Bristol, a station at the point where theVirginia and Tennessee Railroad crosses the line between Virginia andTennessee. 

As we were preparing to set out a Sergeant of the First Virginia cavalrycame galloping up to us on my horse! The sight of my faithful "Hiatoga"bestrid by a Rebel, wrung my heart. During the action I had forgottenhim, but when it ceased I began to worry about his fate. As he and hisrider came near I called out to him; he stopped and gave a whinny ofrecognition, which seemed also a plaintive appeal for an explanation ofthe changed condition of affairs. 

The Sergeant was a pleasant, gentlemanly boy of about my own age. He rode up to me and inquired if it was my horse, to which I replied inthe affirmative, and asked permission to take from the saddle pocketssome letters, pictures and other trinkets. He granted this, and webecame friends from thence on until we separated. He rode by my side aswe plodded over the steep, slippery hills, and we beguiled the way bychatting of the thousand things that soldiers find to talk about, andexchanged reminiscences of the service on both sides. But the subject hewas fondest of was that which I relished least: my--now his--horse. Intothe open ulcer of my heart he poured the acid of all manner of questionsconcerning my lost steed's qualities and capabilities: would he swim?how was he in fording? did he jump well! how did he stand fire?I smothered my irritation, and answered as pleasantly as I could. 

In the afternoon of the third day after the capture, we came up to wherea party of rustic belles were collected at "quilting. " The "Yankees"were instantly objects of greater interest than the parade of a menageriewould have been. The Sergeant told the girls we were going to camp forthe night a mile or so ahead, and if they would be at a certain house, he would have a Yankee for them for close inspection. After halting, the Sergeant obtained leave to take me out with a guard, and I waspresently ushered into a room in which the damsels were massed in force, --a carnation-checked, staring, open-mouthed, linsey-clad crowd, asignorant of corsets and gloves as of Hebrew, and with a propensity togiggle that was chronic and irrepressible. When we entered the roomthere was a general giggle, and then a shower of comments upon myappearance, --each sentence punctuated with the chorus of femininecachination. A remark was made about my hair and eyes, and theirrisibles gave way; judgment was passed on my nose, and then came a rippleof laughter. I got very red in the face, and uncomfortable generally. Attention was called to the size of my feet and hands, and the usualchorus followed. Those useful members of my body seemed to swell up asthey do to a young man at his first party. 

Then I saw that in the minds of these bucolic maidens I was scarcely, if at all, human; they did not understand that I belonged to the race;I was a "Yankee"--a something of the non-human class, as the gorilla orthe chimpanzee. They felt as free to discuss my points before my face asthey would to talk of a horse or a wild animal in a show. My equanimitywas partially restored by this reflection, but I was still too young toescape embarrassment and irritation at being thus dissected and giggledat by a party of girls, even if they were ignorant Virginia mountaineers. 

I turned around to speak to the Sergeant, and in so doing showed my backto the ladies. The hum of comment deepened into surprise, that halfstopped and then intensified the giggle. 

I was puzzled for a minute, and then the direction of their glances, andtheir remarks explained it all. At the rear of the lower part of thecavalry jacket, about where the upper ornamental buttons are on the tailof a frock coat, are two funny tabs, about the size of smallpin-cushions. They are fastened by the edge, and stick out straightbehind. Their use is to support the heavy belt in the rear, as thebuttons do in front. When the belt is off it would puzzle the SevenWise Men to guess what they are for. The unsophisticated young ladies, with that swift intuition which is one of lovely woman's salient mentaltraits, immediately jumped at the conclusion that the projectionscovered some peculiar conformation of the Yankee anatomy--someincipient, dromedary-like humps, or perchance the horns of which theyhad heard so much. 

This anatomical phenomena was discussed intently for a few minutes, during which I heard one of the girls inquire whether "it would hurt himto cut 'em off?" and another hazarded the opinion that "it would probablybleed him to death. "

Then a new idea seized them, and they said to the Sergeant "Make himsing! Make him sing!"

This was too much for the Sergeant, who had been intensely amused at thegirls' wonderment. He turned to me, very red in the face, with:

"Sergeant: the girls want to hear you sing. "

I replied that I could not sing a note. Said he:

"Oh, come now. I know better than that; I never seed or heerd of aYankee that couldn't sing. "

I nevertheless assured him that there really were some Yankees that didnot have any musical accomplishments, and that I was one of thatunfortunate number. I asked him to get the ladies to sing for me, and to this they acceded quite readily. One girl, with a fair soprano, who seemed to be the leader of the crowd, sang "The Homespun Dress, " asong very popular in the South, and having the same tune as the "BonnieBlue Flag. " It began, I envy not the Northern girl Their silks and jewels fine, and proceeded to compare the homespun habiliments of the Southern womento the finery and frippery of the ladies on the other side of Mason andDixon's line in a manner very disadvantageous to the latter. 

The rest of the girls made a fine exhibition of the lung-power acquiredin climbing their precipitous mountains, when they came in on the chorus

 Hurra! Hurra! for southern rights Hurra! Hurra for the homespun dress, The Southern ladies wear. 

This ended the entertainment. 

On our journey to Bristol we met many Rebel soldiers, of all ranks, and a small number of citizens. As the conscription had then beenenforced pretty sharply for over a year the only able-bodied men seen incivil life were those who had some trade which exempted them from beingforced into active service. It greatly astonished us at first to findthat nearly all the mechanics were included among the exempts, or couldbe if they chose; but a very little reflection showed us the wisdom ofsuch a policy. The South is as nearly a purely agricultural country asis Russia or South America. The people have, little inclination orcapacity for anything else than pastoral pursuits. Consequentlymechanics are very scarce, and manufactories much scarcer. The limitedquantity of products of mechanical skill needed by the people was mostlyimported from the North or Europe. Both these sources of supply werecutoff by the war, and the country was thrown upon its own slendermanufacturing resources. To force its mechanics into the army wouldtherefore be suicidal. The Army would gain a few thousand men, but itsoperations would be embarrassed, if not stopped altogether, by a want ofsupplies. This condition of affairs reminded one of the singular paucityof mechanical skill among the Bedouins of the desert, which renders thelife of a blacksmith sacred. No matter how bitter the feud betweentribes, no one will kill the other's workers of iron, and instances aretold of warriors saving their lives at critical periods by falling ontheir knees and making with their garments an imitation of the action ofa smith's bellows. 

All whom we met were eager to discuss with us the causes, phases andprogress of the war, and whenever opportunity offered or could be made, those of us who were inclined to talk were speedily involved in anargument with crowds of soldiers and citizens. But, owing to the polemicpoverty of our opponents, the argument was more in name than in fact. Like all people of slender or untrained intellectual powers they laboredunder the hallucination that asserting was reasoning, and the emphaticreiteration of bald statements, logic. The narrow round which all fromhighest to lowest--traveled was sometimes comical, and sometimesirritating, according to one's mood! The dispute invariably began bytheir asking:

"Well, what are you 'uns down here a-fightin' we 'uns for?"

As this was replied to the newt one followed:

"Why are you'uns takin' our niggers away from we 'uns for?"

Then came:

"What do you 'uns put our niggers to fightin' we'uns for?" The windupalways was: "Well, let me tell you, sir, you can never whip people thatare fighting for liberty, sir. "

Even General Giltner, who had achieved considerable military reputationas commander of a division of Kentucky cavalry, seemed to be as slenderlyfurnished with logical ammunition as the balance, for as he halted by ushe opened the conversation with the well-worn formula:

"Well: what are you 'uns down here a-fighting we'uns for?"

The question had become raspingly monotonous to me, whom he addressed, and I replied with marked acerbity:

"Because we are the Northern mudsills whom you affect to despise, and wecame down here to lick you into respecting us. "

The answer seemed to tickle him, a pleasanter light came into hissinister gray eyes, he laughed lightly, and bade us a kindly good day. 

Four days after our capture we arrived in Bristol. The guards who hadbrought us over the mountains were relieved by others, the Sergeant bademe good by, struck his spurs into "Hiatoga's" sides, and he and myfaithful horse were soon lost to view in the darkness. 

A new and keener sense of desolation came over me at the final separationfrom my tried and true four-footed friend, who had been my constantcompanion through so many perils and hardships. We had endured togetherthe Winter's cold, the dispiriting drench of the rain, the fatigue of thelong march, the discomforts of the muddy camp, the gripings of hunger, the weariness of the drill and review, the perils of the vidette post, the courier service, the scout and the fight. We had shared in common

 The whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The insolence of office, and the spurns

which a patient private and his horse of the unworthy take; we had hadour frequently recurring rows with other fellows and their horses, overquestions of precedence at watering places, and grass-plots, had hadlively tilts with guards of forage piles in surreptitious attempts to getadditional rations, sometimes coming off victorious and sometimes beingdriven off ingloriously. I had often gone hungry that he might have theonly ear of corn obtainable. I am not skilled enough in horse lore tospeak of his points or pedigree. I only know that his strong limbs neverfailed me, and that he was always ready for duty and ever willing. 

Now at last our paths diverged. I was retired from actual service to aprison, and he bore his new master off to battle against his old friends. 

 ........................... 

Packed closely in old, dilapidated stock and box cars, as if cattle inshipment to market, we pounded along slowly, and apparently interminably, toward the Rebel capital. 

The railroads of the South were already in very bad condition. They werenever more than passably good, even in their best estate, but now, with a large part of the skilled men engaged upon them escaped back tothe North, with all renewal, improvement, or any but the most necessaryrepairs stopped for three years, and with a marked absence of evenordinary skill and care in their management, they were as nearly ruinedas they could well be and still run. 

One of the severe embarrassments under which the roads labored was a lackof oil. There is very little fatty matter of any kind in the South. The climate and the food plants do not favor the accumulation of adiposetissue by animals, and there is no other source of supply. Lard oil andtallow were very scarce and held at exorbitant prices. 

Attempts were made to obtain lubricants from the peanut and the cottonseed. The first yielded a fine bland oil, resembling the ordinary gradeof olive oil, but it was entirely too expensive for use in the arts. The cotton seed oil could be produced much cheaper, but it had in it sucha quantity of gummy matter as to render it worse than useless foremployment on machinery. 

This scarcity of oleaginous matter produced a corresponding scarcity ofsoap and similar detergents, but this was a deprivation which caused theRebels, as a whole, as little inconvenience as any that they sufferedfrom. I have seen many thousands of them who were obviously greatly inneed of soap, but if they were rent with any suffering on that accountthey concealed it with marvelous self-control. 

There seemed to be a scanty supply of oil provided for the locomotives, but the cars had to run with unlubricated axles, and the screaking andgroaning of the grinding journals in the dry boxes was sometimes almostdeafening, especially when we were going around a curve. 

Our engine went off the wretched track several times, but as she was notrunning much faster than a man could walk, the worst consequence to uswas a severe jolting. She was small, and was easily pried back upon thetrack, and sent again upon her wheezy, straining way. 

The depression which had weighed us down for a night and a day after ourcapture had now been succeeded by a more cheerful feeling. We began tolook upon our condition as the fortune of war. We were proud of ourresistance to overwhelming numbers. We knew we had sold ourselves at aprice which, if the Rebels had it to do over again, they would not payfor us. We believed that we had killed and seriously wounded as many ofthem as they had killed, wounded and captured of us. We had nothing toblame ourselves for. Moreover, we began to be buoyed up with theexpectation that we would be exchanged immediately upon our arrival atRichmond, and the Rebel officers confidently assured us that this wouldbe so. There was then a temporary hitch in the exchange, but it wouldall be straightened out in a few days, and it might not be a month untilwe were again marching out of Cumberland Gap, on an avenging forayagainst some of the force which had assisted in our capture. 

Fortunately for this delusive hopefulness there was no weird and bodingCassandra to pierce the veil of the future for us, and reveal the lengthand the ghastly horror of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, throughwhich we must pass for hundreds of sad days, stretching out into longmonths of suffering and death. Happily there was no one to tell us thatof every five in that party four would never stand under the Stars andStripes again, but succumbing to chronic starvation, long-continuedexposure, the bullet of the brutal guard, the loathsome scurvy, thehideous gangrene, and the heartsickness of hope deferred, would findrespite from pain low in the barren sands of that hungry Southern soil. 

Were every doom foretokened by appropriate omens, the ravens along ourroute would have croaked themselves hoarse. 

But, far from being oppressed by any presentiment of coming evil, webegan to appreciate and enjoy the picturesque grandeur of the scenerythrough which we were moving. The rugged sternness of the Appalachianmountain range, in whose rock-ribbed heart we had fought our losingfight, was now softening into less strong, but more graceful outlines aswe approached the pine-clad, sandy plains of the seaboard, upon whichRichmond is built. We were skirting along the eastern base of the greatBlue Ridge, about whose distant and lofty summits hung a perpetual veilof deep, dark, but translucent blue, which refracted the slanting rays ofthe morning and evening sun into masses of color more gorgeous than adreamer's vision of an enchanted land. At Lynchburg we saw the famedPeaks of Otter--twenty miles away--lifting their proud heads far into theclouds, like giant watch-towers sentineling the gateway that the mightywaters of the James had forced through the barriers of solid adamantlying across their path to the far-off sea. What we had seen many milesback start from the mountain sides as slender rivulets, brawling over theworn boulders, were now great, rushing, full-tide streams, enough of themin any fifty miles of our journey to furnish water power for all thefactories of New England. Their amazing opulence of mechanical energyhas lain unutilized, almost unnoticed; in the two and one-half centuriesthat the white man has dwelt near them, while in Massachusetts and hernear neighbors every rill that can turn a wheel has been put into harnessand forced to do its share of labor for the benefit of the men who havemade themselves its masters. 

Here is one of the differences between the two sections: In the North manwas set free, and the elements made to do his work. In the South man wasthe degraded slave, and the elements wantoned on in undisturbed freedom. 

As we went on, the Valleys of the James and the Appomattox, down whichour way lay, broadened into an expanse of arable acres, and the faces ofthose streams were frequently flecked by gem-like little islands. 

CHAPTER VII. 

ENTERING RICHMOND--DISAPPOINTMENT AT ITS APPEARANCE--EVERYBODY INUNIFORM--CURLED DARLINGS OF THE CAPITAL--THE REBEL FLAG--LIBBY PRISON--DICK TURNER--SEARCHING THE NEW COMERS. 

Early on the tenth morning after our capture we were told that we wereabout to enter Richmond. Instantly all were keenly observant of everydetail in the surroundings of a City that was then the object of thehopes and fears of thirty-five millions of people--a City assailing whichseventy-five thousand brave men had already laid down their lives, defending which an equal number had died, and which, before it fell, wasto cost the life blood of another one hundred and fifty thousand valiantassailants and defenders. 

So much had been said and written about Richmond that our boyish mindshad wrought up the most extravagant expectations of it and its defenses. We anticipated seeing a City differing widely from anything ever seenbefore; some anomaly of nature displayed in its site, itself guarded byimposing and impregnable fortifications, with powerful forts and heavyguns, perhaps even walls, castles, postern gates, moats and ditches, and all the other panoply of defensive warfare, with which romantichistory had made us familiar. 

We were disappointed--badly disappointed--in seeing nothing of this as weslowly rolled along. The spires and the tall chimneys of the factoriesrose in the distance very much as they had in other Cities we hadvisited. We passed a single line of breastworks of bare yellow sand, but the scrubby pines in front were not cut away, and there were no signsthat there had ever been any immediate expectation of use for the works. A redoubt or two--without guns--could be made out, and this was all. Grim-visaged war had few wrinkles on his front in that neighborhood. They were then seaming his brow on the Rappahannock, seventy miles away, where the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac layconfronting each other. 

At one of the stopping places I had been separated from my companions byentering a car in which were a number of East Tennesseeans, captured inthe operations around Knoxville, and whom the Rebels, in accordance withtheir usual custom, were treating with studied contumely. I had alwayshad a very warm side for these simple rustics of the mountains andvalleys. I knew much of their unwavering fidelity to the Union, of thefirm steadfastness with which they endured persecution for theircountry's sake, and made sacrifices even unto death; and, as in thosedays I estimated all men simply by their devotion to the great cause ofNational integrity, (a habit that still clings to me) I rated these menvery highly. I had gone into their car to do my little to encouragethem, and when I attempted to return to my own I was prevented by theguard. 

Crossing the long bridge, our train came to a halt on the other side ofthe river with the usual clamor of bell and whistle, the usual seeminglypurposeless and vacillating, almost dizzying, running backward andforward on a network of sidetracks and switches, that seemed unavoidablynecessary, a dozen years ago, in getting a train into a City. 

Still unable to regain my comrades and share their fortunes, I wasmarched off with the Tennesseeans through the City to the office of someone who had charge of the prisoners of war. 

The streets we passed through were lined with retail stores, in whichbusiness was being carried on very much as in peaceful times. Manypeople were on the streets, but the greater part of the men wore somesort of a uniform. Though numbers of these were in active service, yetthe wearing of a military garb did not necessarily imply this. Nearlyevery able-bodied man in Richmond was; enrolled in some sort of anorganization, and armed, and drilled regularly. Even the members of theConfederate Congress were uniformed and attached, in theory at least, tothe Home Guards. 

It was obvious even to the casual glimpse of a passing prisoner of war, that the City did not lack its full share of the class which formed solarge an element of the society of Washington and other Northern Citiesduring the war--the dainty carpet soldiers, heros of the promenade andthe boudoir, who strutted in uniforms when the enemy was far off, andwore citizen's clothes when he was close at hand. There were many curleddarlings displaying their fine forms in the nattiest of uniforms, whosegloss had never suffered from so much as a heavy dew, let alone a rainyday on the march. The Confederate gray could be made into a very dressygarb. With the sleeves lavishly embroidered with gold lace, and thecollar decorated with stars indicating the wearer's rank--silver for thefield officers, and gold for the higher grade, --the feet compressed intohigh-heeled, high-instepped boots, (no Virginian is himself without afine pair of skin-tight boots) and the head covered with a fine, soft, broad-brimmed hat, trimmed with a gold cord, from which a bullion tasseldangled several inches down the wearer's back, you had a military swell, caparisoned for conquest--among the fair sex. 

On our way we passed the noted Capitol of Virginia--a handsome marblebuilding, --of the column-fronted Grecian temple style. It stands in thecenter of the City. Upon the grounds is Crawford's famous equestrianstatue of Washington, surrounded by smaller statues of otherRevolutionary patriots. 

The Confederate Congress was then in session in the Capitol, and also theLegislature of Virginia, a fact indicated by the State flag of Virginiafloating from the southern end of the building, and the new flag of theConfederacy from the northern end. This was the first time I had seenthe latter, which had been recently adopted, and I examined it with someinterest. The design was exceedingly plain. Simply a white banner, witha red field in the corner where the blue field with stars is in ours. The two blue stripes were drawn diagonally across this field in the shapeof a letter X, and in these were thirteen white stars, corresponding tothe number of States claimed to be in the Confederacy. 

The battle-flag was simply the red field. My examination of all this wasnecessarily very brief. The guards felt that I was in Richmond for otherpurposes than to study architecture, statuary and heraldry, and besides they were in a hurry to be relieved of us and get theirbreakfast, so my art-education was abbreviated sharply. 

We did not excite much attention on the streets. Prisoners had by thattime become too common in Richmond to create any interest. Occasionallypassers by would fling opprobrious epithets at "the East Tennesseetraitors, " but that was all. 

The commandant of the prisons directed the Tennesseeans to be taken toCastle Lightning--a prison used to confine the Rebel deserters, amongwhom they also classed the East Tennesseeans, and sometimes the WestVirginians, Kentuckians, Marylanders and Missourians found fightingagainst them. Such of our men as deserted to them were also lodgedthere, as the Rebels, very properly, did not place a high estimate uponthis class of recruits to their army, and, as we shall see farther along, violated all obligations of good faith with them, by putting them amongthe regular prisoners of war, so as to exchange them for their own men. 

Back we were all marched to a street which ran parallel to the river andcanal, and but one square away from them. It was lined on both sides byplain brick warehouses and tobacco factories, four and five stories high, which were now used by the Rebel Government as prisons and militarystorehouses. 

The first we passed was Castle Thunder, of bloody repute. This occupiedthe same place in Confederate history, that, the dungeons beneath thelevel of the water did in the annals of the Venetian Council of Ten. It was believed that if the bricks in its somber, dirt-grimed walls couldspeak, each could tell a separate story of a life deemed dangerous to theState that had gone down in night, at the behest of the ruthlessConfederate authorities. It was confidently asserted that among thecommoner occurrences within its confines was the stationing of a doomedprisoner against a certain bit of blood-stained, bullet-chipped wall, and relieving the Confederacy of all farther fear of him by the rifles ofa firing party. How well this dark reputation was deserved, no one butthose inside the inner circle of the Davis Government can say. It issafe to believe that more tragedies were enacted there than the archivesof the Rebel civil or military judicature give any account of. Theprison was employed for the detention of spies, and those charged withthe convenient allegation of "treason against the Confederate States ofAmerica. " It is probable that many of these were sent out of the worldwith as little respect for the formalities of law as was exhibited withregard to the 'suspects' during the French Revolution. 

Next we came to Castle Lightning, and here I bade adieu to my Tennesseecompanions. 

A few squares more and we arrived at a warehouse larger than any of theothers. Over the door was a sign

 THOMAS LIBBY & SON, SHIP CHANDLERS AND GROCERS. 

This was the notorious "Libby Prison, " whose name was painfully familiarto every Union man in the land. Under the sign was a broad entrance way, large enough to admit a dray or a small wagon. On one side of this wasthe prison office, in which were a number of dapper, feeble-faced clerksat work on the prison records. 

As I entered this space a squad of newly arrived prisoners were beingsearched for valuables, and having their names, rank and regimentrecorded in the books. Presently a clerk addressed as "Majah Tunnah, "the man who was superintending these operations, and I scanned him withincreased interest, as I knew then that he was the ill-famed Dick Turner, hated all over the North for his brutality to our prisoners. 

He looked as if he deserved his reputation. Seen upon the street hewould be taken for a second or third class gambler, one in whom a certainamount of cunning is pieced out by a readiness to use brute force. Hisface, clean-shaved, except a "Bowery-b'hoy" goatee, was white, fat, andselfishly sensual. Small, pig-like eyes, set close together, glancedaround continually. His legs were short, his body long, and made toappear longer, by his wearing no vest--a custom common them withSoutherners. 

His faculties were at that moment absorbed in seeing that no personconcealed any money from him. His subordinates did not search closelyenough to suit him, and he would run his fat, heavily-ringed fingersthrough the prisoner's hair, feel under their arms and elsewhere where hethought a stray five dollar greenback might be concealed. But with allhis greedy care he was no match for Yankee cunning. The prisoners toldme afterward that, suspecting they would be searched, they had taken offthe caps of the large, hollow brass buttons of their coats, carefullyfolded a bill into each cavity, and replaced the cap. In this way theybrought in several hundred dollars safely. 

There was one dirty old Englishman in the party, who, Turner wasconvinced, had money concealed about his person. He compelled him tostrip off everything, and stand shivering in the sharp cold, while hetook up one filthy rag after another, felt over each carefully, andscrutinized each seam and fold. I was delighted to see that after allhis nauseating work he did not find so much as a five cent piece. 

It came my turn. I had no desire, in that frigid atmosphere, to stripdown to what Artemus Ward called "the skanderlous costoom of the GreekSlave;" so I pulled out of my pocket my little store of wealth--tendollars in greenbacks, sixty dollars in Confederate graybacks--anddisplayed it as Turner came up with, "There's all I have, sir. " Turnerpocketed it without a word, and did not search me. In after months, whenI was nearly famished, my estimation of "Majah Tunnah" was hardlyenhanced by the reflection that what would have purchased me many goodmeals was probably lost by him in betting on a pair of queens, when hisopponent held a "king full. "

I ventured to step into the office to inquire after my comrades. One ofthe whey-faced clerks said with the supercilious asperity characteristicof gnat-brained headquarters attaches:

"Get out of here!" as if I had been a stray cur wandering in in search ofa bone lunch. 

I wanted to feed the fellow to a pile-driver. The utmost I could hopefor in the way of revenge was that the delicate creature might some daymake a mistake in parting his hair, and catch his death of cold. 

The guard conducted us across the street, and into the third story of abuilding standing on the next corner below. Here I found about fourhundred men, mostly belonging to the Army of the Potomac, who crowdedaround me with the usual questions to new prisoners: What was myRegiment, where and when captured, and:

What were the prospects of exchange?

It makes me shudder now to recall how often, during the dreadful monthsthat followed, this momentous question was eagerly propounded to everynew comer: put with bated breath by men to whom exchange meant all thatthey asked of this world, and possibly of the next; meant life, home, wife or sweet-heart, friends, restoration to manhood, and self-respect--everything, everything that makes existence in this world worth having. 

I answered as simply and discouragingly as did the tens of thousands thatcame after me:

"I did not hear anything about exchange. "

A soldier in the field had many other things of more immediate interestto think about than the exchange of prisoners. The question only becamea living issue when he or some of his intimate friends fell into theenemy's hands. 

Thus began my first day in prison. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

INTRODUCTION TO PRISON LIFE--THE PEMBERTON BUILDING AND ITS OCCUPANTS--NEAT SAILORS--ROLL CALL--RATIONS AND CLOTHING--CHIVALRIC "CONFISCATION. "

I began acquainting myself with my new situation and surroundings. The building into which I had been conducted was an old tobacco factory, called the "Pemberton building, " possibly from an owner of that name, and standing on the corner of what I was told were Fifteenth and Careystreets. In front it was four stories high; behind but three, owing tothe rapid rise of the hill, against which it was built. 

It fronted towards the James River and Kanawha Canal, and the JamesRiver--both lying side by side, and only one hundred yards distant, with no intervening buildings. The front windows afforded a fine view. To the right front was Libby, with its guards pacing around it on thesidewalk, watching the fifteen hundred officers confined within itswalls. At intervals during each day squads of fresh prisoners could beseen entering its dark mouth, to be registered, and searched, and thenmarched off to the prison assigned them. We could see up the James Riverfor a mile or so, to where the long bridges crossing it bounded the view. Directly in front, across the river, was a flat, sandy plain, said to beGeneral Winfield Scott's farm, and now used as a proving ground for theguns cast at the Tredegar Iron Works. 

The view down the river was very fine. It extended about twelve miles, to where a gap in the woods seemed to indicate a fort, which we imaginedto be Fort Darling, at that time the principal fortification defendingthe passage of the James. 

Between that point and where we were lay the river, in a long, broadmirror-like expanse, like a pretty little inland lake. Occasionally abusy little tug would bustle up or down, a gunboat move along withnoiseless dignity, suggestive of a reserved power, or a schooner beatlazily from one side to the other. But these were so few as to make evenmore pronounced the customary idleness that hung over the scene. Thetug's activity seemed spasmodic and forced--a sort of protest against thegradually increasing lethargy that reigned upon the bosom of the waters--the gunboat floated along as if performing a perfunctory duty, and theschooners sailed about as if tired of remaining in one place. Thatlittle stretch of water was all that was left for a cruising ground. Beyond Fort Darling the Union gunboats lay, and the only vessel thatpassed the barrier was the occasional flag-of-truce steamer. 

The basement of the building was occupied as a store-house for thetaxes-in-kind which the Confederate Government collected. On the firstfloor were about five hundred men. On the second floor--where I was--were about four hundred men. These were principally from the FirstDivision, First Corps distinguished by a round red patch on their caps;First Division, Second Corps, marked by a red clover leaf; and the FirstDivision, Third Corps, who wore a red diamond. They were mainlycaptured at Gettysburg and Mine Run. Besides these there was aconsiderable number from the Eighth Corps, captured at Winchester, and alarge infusion of Cavalry-First, Second and Third West Virginia--takenin Averill's desperate raid up the Virginia Valley, with the WythevilleSalt Works as an objective. 

On the third floor were about two hundred sailors and marines, taken inthe gallant but luckless assault upon the ruins of Fort Sumter, in theSeptember previous. They retained the discipline of the ship in theirquarters, kept themselves trim and clean, and their floor as white as aship's deck. They did not court the society of the "sojers" below, whosecamp ideas of neatness differed from theirs. A few old barnacle-backsalways sat on guard around the head of the steps leading from the lowerrooms. They chewed tobacco enormously, and kept their mouths filled withthe extracted juice. Any luckless "sojer" who attempted to ascend thestairs usually returned in haste, to avoid the deluge of the filthyliquid. 

For convenience in issuing rations we were divided into messes of twenty, each mess electing a Sergeant as its head, and each floor electing aSergeant-of-the-Floor, who drew rations and enforced what littlediscipline was observed. 

Though we were not so neat as the sailors above us, we tried to keep ourquarters reasonably clean, and we washed the floor every morning; gettingdown on our knees and rubbing it clean and dry with rags. Each messdetailed a man each day to wash up the part of the floor it occupied, and he had to do this properly or no ration would be given him. Whilethe washing up was going on each man stripped himself and made closeexamination of his garments for the body-lice, which otherwise would haveincreased beyond control. Blankets were also carefully hunted over forthese "small deer. "

About eight o'clock a spruce little lisping rebel named Ross would appearwith a book, and a body-guard, consisting of a big Irishman, who had theair of a Policeman, and carried a musket barrel made into a cane. Behindhim were two or three armed guards. The Sergeant-of-the-Floor commanded:

"Fall in in four ranks for roll-call. "

We formed along one side of the room; the guards halted at the head ofthe stairs; Ross walked down in front and counted the files, closelyfollowed by his Irish aid, with his gun-barrel cane raised ready for useupon any one who should arouse his ruffianly ire. Breaking ranks wereturned to our places, and sat around in moody silence for three hours. We had eaten nothing since the previous noon. Rising hungry, our hungerseemed to increase in arithmetical ratio with every quarter of an hour. 

These times afforded an illustration of the thorough subjection of man tothe tyrant Stomach. A more irritable lot of individuals could scarcelybe found outside of a menagerie than these men during the hours waitingfor rations. "Crosser than, two sticks" utterly failed as a comparison. They were crosser than the lines of a check apron. Many could have givenodds to the traditional bear with a sore head, and run out of the gamefifty points ahead of him. It was astonishingly easy to get up a fightat these times. There was no need of going a step out of the way tosearch for it, as one could have a full fledged article of overwhelmingsize on his hands at any instant, by a trifling indiscretion of speech ormanner. All the old irritating flings between the cavalry, the artilleryand the infantry, the older "first-call" men, and the later or"Three-Hundred-Dollar-men, " as they were derisively dubbed, between thedifferent corps of the Army of the Potomac, between men of differentStates, and lastly between the adherents and opponents of McClellan, cameto the lips and were answered by a blow with the fist, when a ring wouldbe formed around the combatants by a crowd, which would encourage themwith yells to do their best. In a few minutes one of the parties to thefistic debate, who found the point raised by him not well taken, wouldretire to the sink to wash the blood from his battered face, and the restwould resume their seats and glower at space until some fresh excitementroused them. For the last hour or so of these long waits hardly a wordwould be spoken. We were too ill-natured to talk for amusement, andthere was nothing else to talk for. 

This spell was broken about eleven o'clock by the appearance at the headof the stairway of the Irishman with the gun-barrel cane, and his singingout:

"Sargint uv the flure: fourtane min and a bread-box!"

Instantly every man sprang to his feet, and pressed forward to be one ofthe favored fourteen. One did not get any more gyrations or obtain themany sooner by this, but it was a relief, and a change to walk the halfsquare outside the prison to the cookhouse, and help carry the rationsback. 

For a little while after our arrival in Richmond, the rations weretolerably good. There had been so much said about the privations of theprisoners that our Government had, after much quibbling and negotiation, succeeded in getting the privilege of sending food and clothing throughthe lines to us. Of course but a small part of that sent ever reachedits destination. There were too many greedy Rebels along its line ofpassage to let much of it be received by those for whom it was intended. We could see from our windows Rebels strutting about in overcoats, inwhich the box wrinkles were still plainly visible, wearing new "U. S. "blankets as cloaks, and walking in Government shoes, worth fabulousprices in Confederate money. 

Fortunately for our Government the rebels decided to out themselves offfrom this profitable source of supply. We read one day in the Richmondpapers that "President Davis and his Cabinet had come to the conclusionthat it was incompatible with the dignity of a sovereign power to permitanother power with which it was at war, to feed and clothe prisoners inits hands. "

I will not stop to argue this point of honor, and show its absurdity bypointing out that it is not an unusual practice with nations at war. Itis a sufficient commentary upon this assumption of punctiliousness thatthe paper went on to say that some five tons of clothing and fifteen tonsof food, which had been sent under a flag of truce to City Point, wouldneither be returned nor delivered to us, but "converted to the use of theConfederate Government. "

 "And surely they are all honorable men!"

Heaven save the mark. 

CHAPTER IX. BRANS OR PEAS--INSUFFICIENCY OF DARKY TESTIMONY--A GUARD KILLS APRISONER--PRISONERS TEAZE THE GUARDS--DESPERATE OUTBREAK. 

But, to return to the rations--a topic which, with escape or exchange, were to be the absorbing ones for us for the next fifteen months. Therewas now issued to every two men a loaf of coarse bread--made of a mixtureof flour and meal--and about the size and shape of an ordinary brick. This half loaf was accompanied, while our Government was allowed tofurnish rations, with a small piece of corned beef. Occasionally we gota sweet potato, or a half-pint or such a matter of soup made from acoarse, but nutritious, bean or pea, called variously "nigger-pea, ""stock-pea, " or "cow-pea. "

This, by the way, became a fruitful bone of contention during our stayin the South. One strong party among us maintained that it was a bean, because it was shaped like one, and brown, which they claimed no pea everwas. The other party held that it was a pea because its various namesall agreed in describing it as a pea, and because it was so full ofbugs--none being entirely free from insects, and some having as many astwelve by actual count--within its shell. This, they declared, was adistinctive characteristic of the pea family. The contention began withour first instalment of the leguminous ration, and was still ragingbetween the survivors who passed into our lines in 1865. It waxed hotoccasionally, and each side continually sought evidence to support itsview of the case. Once an old darky, sent into the prison on someerrand, was summoned to decide a hot dispute that was raging in thecrowd to which I belonged. The champion of the pea side said, producingone of the objects of dispute:

"Now, boys, keep still, till I put the question fairly. Now, uncle, whatdo they call that there?"

The colored gentleman scrutinized the vegetable closely, and replied, "Well, dey mos' generally calls 'em stock-peas, round hyar aways. "

"There, " said the pea-champion triumphantly. 

"But, " broke in the leader of the bean party, "Uncle, don't they alsocall them beans?"

"Well, yes, chile, I spec dat lots of 'em does. "

And this was about the way the matter usually ended. 

I will not attempt to bias the reader's judgment by saying which side Ibelieved to be right. As the historic British showman said, in reply tothe question as to whether an animal in his collection was a rhinocerosor an elephant, "You pays your money and you takes your choice. "

The rations issued to us, as will be seen above, though they appearscanty, were still sufficient to support life and health, and monthsafterward, in Andersonville, we used to look back to them as sumptuous. We usually had them divided and eaten by noon, and, with the gnawings ofhunger appeased, we spent the afternoon and evening comfortably. We toldstories, paced up and down, the floor for exercise, played cards, sung, read what few books were available, stood at the windows and studied thelandscape, and watched the Rebels trying their guns and shells, and so onas long as it was daylight. Occasionally it was dangerous to be aboutthe windows. This depended wholly on the temper of the guards. One daya member of a Virginia regiment, on guard on the pavement in front, deliberately left his beat, walked out into the center of the street, aimed his gun at a member of the Ninth West Virginia, who was standing ata window near, and firing, shot him through the heart, the bullet passingthrough his body, and through the floor above. The act was purelymalicious, and was done, doubtless, in revenge for some injury which ourmen had done the assassin or his family. 

We were not altogether blameless, by any means. There were fewopportunities to say bitterly offensive things to the guards, let passunimproved. 

The prisoners in the third floor of the Smith building, adjoining us, had their own way of teasing them. Late at night, when everybody wouldbe lying down, and out of the way of shots, a window in the third storywould open, a broomstick, with a piece nailed across to represent arms, and clothed with a cap and blouse, would be protruded, and a voice comingfrom a man carefully protected by the wall, would inquire:

"S-a-y, g-uarr-d, what time is it?"

If the guard was of the long suffering kind he would answer:

"Take yo' head back in, up dah; you kno hits agin all odahs to do dat?"

Then the voice would say, aggravatingly, "Oh, well, go to ----you ---- Rebel ----, if you can't answer a civil question. "

Before the speech was ended the guard's rifle would be at his shoulderand he would fire. Back would come the blouse and hat in haste, only togo out again the next instant, with a derisive laugh, and, "Thought you were going to hurt somebody, didn't you, you ---- ---- -------- ----. But, Lord, you can't shoot for sour apples; if I couldn'tshoot no better than you, Mr. Johnny Reb, I would ----"

By this time the guard, having his gun loaded again, would cut short theremarks with another shot, which, followed up with similar remarks, wouldprovoke still another, when an alarm sounding, the guards at Libby andall the other buildings around us would turn out. An officer of theguard would go up with a squad into the third floor, only to findeverybody up there snoring away as if they were the Seven Sleepers. After relieving his mind of a quantity of vigorous profanity, and threatsto "buck and gag" and cut off the rations of the whole room, the officerwould return to his quarters in the guard house, but before he was fairlyensconced there the cap and blouse would go out again, and the maddenedguard be regaled with a spirited and vividly profane lecture on thedepravity of Rebels in general, and his own unworthiness in particular. 

One night in January things took a more serious turn. The boys on thelower floor of our building had long considered a plan of escape. Therewere then about fifteen thousand prisoners in Richmond--ten thousand onBelle Isle and five thousand in the buildings. Of these one thousandfive hundred were officers in Libby. Besides there were the prisoners inCastles Thunder and Lightning. The essential features of the plan werethat at a preconcerted signal we at the second and third floors shouldappear at the windows with bricks and irons from the tobacco presses, which a should shower down on the guards and drive them away, while themen of the first floor would pour out, chase the guards into the boardhouse in the basement, seize their arms, drive those away from aroundLibby and the other prisons, release the officers, organize intoregiments and brigades, seize the armory, set fire to the publicbuildings and retreat from the City, by the south side of the James, where there was but a scanty force of Rebels, and more could be preventedfrom coming over by burning the bridges behind us. 

It was a magnificent scheme, and might have been carried out, but therewas no one in the building who was generally believed to have thequalities of a leader. 

But while it was being debated a few of the hot heads on the lower floorundertook to precipitate the crisis. They seized what they thought was afavorable opportunity, overpowered the guard who stood at the foot of thestairs, and poured into the street. The other guards fell back andopened fire on them; other troops hastened up, and soon drove them backinto the building, after killing ten or fifteen. We of the second andthird floors did not anticipate the break at that time, and were taken asmuch by surprise as were the Rebels. Nearly all were lying down andmany were asleep. Some hastened to the windows, and dropped missilesout, but before any concerted action could be taken it was seen that thecase was hopeless, and we remained quiet. 

Among those who led in the assault was a drummer-boy of some New YorkRegiment, a recklessly brave little rascal. He had somehow smuggled asmall four-shooter in with him, and when they rushed out he fired it offat the guards. 

After the prisoners were driven back, the Rebel officers came in andvapored around considerably, but confined themselves to big words. Theywere particularly anxious to find the revolver, and ordered a general andrigorous search for it. The prisoners were all ranged on one side of theroom and carefully examined by one party, while another hunted throughthe blankets and bundles. It was all in vain; no pistol could be found. The boy had a loaf of wheat bread, bought from a baker during the day. It was a round loaf, set together in two pieces like a biscuit. Hepulled these apart, laid the fourshooter between them, pressed the twohalves together, and went on calmly nibbling away at the loaf while thesearch was progressing. 

Two gunboats were brought up the next morning, and anchored in the canalnear us, with their heavy guns trained upon the building. It was thoughtthat this would intimidate as from a repetition of the attack, but oursailors conceived that, as they laid against the shore next to us, theycould be easily captured, and their artillery made to assist us. A scheme to accomplish this was being wrought out, when we receivednotice to move, and it came to naught. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE EXCHANGE AND THE CAUSE OF ITS INTERRUPTION--BRIEF RESUME OF THEDIFFERENT CARTELS, AND THE DIFFICULTIES THAT LED TO THEIR SUSPENSION. 

Few questions intimately connected with the actual operations of theRebellion have been enveloped with such a mass of conflicting statementas the responsibility for the interruption of the exchange. Southernwriters and politicians, naturally anxious to diminish as much aspossible the great odium resting upon their section for the treatment ofprisoners of war during the last year and a half of the Confederacy'sexistence, have vehemently charged that the Government of the UnitedStates deliberately and pitilessly resigned to their fate such of itssoldiers as fell into the hands of the enemy, and repelled all advancesfrom the Rebel Government looking toward a resumption of exchange. It isalleged on our side, on the other hand, that our Government did all thatwas possible, consistent with National dignity and military prudence, to secure a release of its unfortunate men in the power of the Rebels. 

Over this vexed question there has been waged an acrimonious war ofwords, which has apparently led to no decision, nor any convictions--thedisputants, one and all, remaining on the sides of the controversyoccupied by them when the debate began. 

I may not be in possession of all the facts bearing upon the case, andmay be warped in judgment by prejudices in favor of my own Government'swisdom and humanity, but, however this may be, the following is my firmbelief as to the controlling facts in this lamentable affair:

1. For some time after the beginning of hostilities our Governmentrefused to exchange prisoners with the Rebels, on the ground that thismight be held by the European powers who were seeking a pretext foracknowledging the Confederacy, to be admission by us that the war was nolonger an insurrection but a revolution, which had resulted in the 'defacto' establishment of a new nation. This difficulty was finally gottenover by recognizing the Rebels as belligerents, which, while it placedthem on a somewhat different plane from mere insurgents, did not elevatethem to the position of soldiers of a foreign power. 

2. Then the following cartel was agreed upon by Generals Dig on our sideand Hill on that of the Rebels:

HAXALL'S LANDING, ON JAMES RIVER, July 22, 1882. 

The undersigned, having been commissioned by the authorities theyrespectively represent to make arrangements for a general exchange ofprisoners of war, have agreed to the following articles:

ARTICLE I. --It is hereby agreed and stipulated, that all prisoners ofwar, held by either party, including those taken on private armedvessels, known as privateers, shall be exchanged upon the conditions andterms following:

Prisoners to be exchanged man for man and officer for officer. Privateers to be placed upon the footing of officers and men of the navy. 

Men and officers of lower grades may be exchanged for officers of ahigher grade, and men and officers of different services may be exchangedaccording to the following scale of equivalents:

A General-commanding-in-chief, or an Admiral, shall be exchanged forofficers of equal rank, or for sixty privates or common seamen. 

A Commodore, carrying a broad pennant, or a Brigadier General, shall beexchanged for officers of equal rank, or twenty privates or commonseamen. 

A Captain in the Navy, or a Colonel, shall be exchanged for officers ofequal rank, or for fifteen privates or common seamen. 

A Lieutenant Colonel, or Commander in the Navy, shall be exchanged forofficers of equal rank, or for ten privates or common seamen. 

A Lieutenant, or a Master in the Navy, or a Captain in the Army ormarines shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or six privates orcommon seamen. 

Master's-mates in the Navy, or Lieutenants or Ensigns in the Army, shallbe exchanged for officers of equal rank, or four privates or commonseamen. Midshipmen, warrant officers in the Navy, masters of merchantvessels and commanders of privateers, shall be exchanged for officers ofequal rank, or three privates or common seamen; Second Captains, Lieutenants or mates of merchant vessels or privateers, and all pettyofficers in the Navy, and all noncommissioned officers in the Army ormarines, shall be severally exchanged for persons of equal rank, or fortwo privates or common seamen; and private soldiers or common seamenshall be exchanged for each other man for man. 

ARTICLE II. --Local, State, civil and militia rank held by persons not inactual military service will not be recognized; the basis of exchangebeing the grade actually held in the naval and military service of therespective parties. 

ARTICLE III. --If citizens held by either party on charges of disloyalty, or any alleged civil offense, are exchanged, it shall only be forcitizens. Captured sutlers, teamsters, and all civilians in the actualservice of either party, to be exchanged for persons in similarpositions. 

ARTICLE IV. --All prisoners of war to be discharged on parole in ten daysafter their capture; and the prisoners now held, and those hereaftertaken, to be transported to the points mutually agreed upon, at theexpense of the capturing party. The surplus prisoners not exchangedshall not be permitted to take up arms again, nor to serve as militarypolice or constabulary force in any fort, garrison or field-work, held byeither of the respective parties, nor as guards of prisoners, deposits orstores, nor to discharge any duty usually performed by soldiers, untilexchanged under the provisions of this cartel. The exchange is not to beconsidered complete until the officer or soldier exchanged for has beenactually restored to the lines to which he belongs. 

ARTICLE V. --Each party upon the discharge of prisoners of the other partyis authorized to discharge an equal number of their own officers or menfrom parole, furnishing, at the same time, to the other party a list oftheir prisoners discharged, and of their own officers and men relievedfrom parole; thus enabling each party to relieve from parole such oftheir officers and men as the party may choose. The lists thus mutuallyfurnished, will keep both parties advised of the true condition of theexchange of prisoners. 

ARTICLE VI. --The stipulations and provisions above mentioned to be ofbinding obligation during the continuance of the war, it matters notwhich party may have the surplus of prisoners; the great principlesinvolved being, First, An equitable exchange of prisoners, man for man, or officer for officer, or officers of higher grade exchanged forofficers of lower grade, or for privates, according to scale ofequivalents. Second, That privates and officers and men of differentservices may be exchanged according to the same scale of equivalents. Third, That all prisoners, of whatever arm of service, are to beexchanged or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, if it bepracticable to transfer them to their own lines in that time; if not, sosoon thereafter as practicable. Fourth, That no officer, or soldier, employed in the service of either party, is to be considered as exchangedand absolved from his parole until his equivalent has actually reachedthe lines of his friends. Fifth, That parole forbids the performance offield, garrison, police, or guard or constabulary duty. 

 JOHN A. DIX, Major General. 

 D. H. HILL, Major General, C. S. A. 

SUPPLEMENTARY ARTICLES. 

ARTICLE VII. --All prisoners of war now held on either side, and allprisoners hereafter taken, shall be sent with all reasonable dispatch toA. M. Aiken's, below Dutch Gap, on the James River, in Virginia, or toVicksburg, on the Mississippi River, in the State of Mississippi, andthere exchanged of paroled until such exchange can be effected, noticebeing previously given by each party of the number of prisoners it willsend, and the time when they will be delivered at those pointsrespectively; and in case the vicissitudes of war shall change themilitary relations of the places designated in this article to thecontending parties, so as to render the same inconvenient for thedelivery and exchange of prisoners, other places bearing as nearly as maybe the present local relations of said places to the lines of saidparties, shall be, by mutual agreement, substituted. But nothing in thisarticle contained shall prevent the commanders of the two opposing armiesfrom exchanging prisoners or releasing them on parole, at other pointsmutually agreed on by said commanders. 

ARTICLE VIII. --For the purpose of carrying into effect the foregoingarticles of agreement, each party will appoint two agents for theexchange of prisoners of war, whose duty it shall be to communicate witheach other by correspondence and otherwise; to prepare the lists ofprisoners; to attend to the delivery of the prisoners at the placesagreed on, and to carry out promptly, effectually, and in good faith, all the details and provisions of the said articles of agreement. 

ARTICLE IX. --And, in case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard toany clause or stipulation in the foregoing articles, it is mutuallyagreed that such misunderstanding shall not affect the release ofprisoners on parole, as herein provided, but shall be made the subject offriendly explanation, in order that the object of this agreement mayneither be defeated nor postponed. 

 JOHN A. DIX, Major General. D. H. HILL, Major General. C. S. A. 

This plan did not work well. Men on both sides, who wanted a little restfrom soldiering, could obtain it by so straggling in the vicinity of theenemy. Their parole--following close upon their capture, frequently uponthe spot--allowed them to visit home, and sojourn awhile where werepleasanter pastures than at the front. Then the Rebels grew into thehabit of paroling everybody that they could constrain into being aprisoner of war. Peaceable, unwarlike and decrepit citizens of Kentucky, East Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri and Maryland were "captured" andparoled, and setoff against regular Rebel soldiers taken by us. 

3. After some months of trial of this scheme, a modification of thecartel was agreed upon, the main feature of which was that all prisonersmust be reduced to possession, and delivered to the exchange officerseither at City Point, Va. , or Vicksburg, Miss. This worked very well forsome months, until our Government began organizing negro troops. TheRebels then issued an order that neither these troops nor their officersshould be held as amenable to the laws of war, but that, when captured, the men should be returned to slavery, and the officers turned over tothe Governors of the States in which they were taken, to be dealt withaccording to the stringent law punishing the incitement of servileinsurrection. Our Government could not permit this for a day. It wasbound by every consideration of National honor to protect those who woreits uniform and bore its flag. The Rebel Government was promptlyinformed that rebel officers and men would be held as hostages for theproper treatment of such members of colored regiments as might be taken. 

4. This discussion did not put a stop to the exchange, but while it wasgoing on Vicksburg was captured, and the battle of Gettysburg was fought. The first placed one of the exchange points in our hands. At the openingof the fight at Gettysburg Lee captured some six thousand Pennsylvaniamilitia. He sent to Meade to have these exchanged on the field ofbattle. Meade declined to do so for two reasons: first, because it wasagainst the cartel, which prescribed that prisoners must be reduced topossession; and second, because he was anxious to have Lee hampered withsuch a body of prisoners, since it was very doubtful if he could get hisbeaten army back across the Potomac, let alone his prisoners. Lee thensent a communication to General Couch, commanding the Pennsylvaniamilitia, asking him to receive prisoners on parole, and Couch, notknowing what Meade had done, acceded to the request. Our Governmentdisavowed Couch's action instantly, and ordered the paroles to be treatedas of no force, whereupon the Rebel Government ordered back into thefield twelve thousand of the prisoners captured by Grant's army atVicksburg. 

5. The paroling now stopped abruptly, leaving in the hands of both sidesthe prisoners captured at Gettysburg, except the militia above mentioned. The Rebels added considerably to those in their hands by their capturesat Chickamauga, while we gained a great many at Mission Ridge, CumberlandGap and elsewhere, so that at the time we arrived in Richmond the Rebelshad about fifteen thousand prisoners in their hands and our Governmenthad about twenty-five thousand. 

6. The rebels now began demanding that the prisoners on both sides beexchanged--man for man--as far as they went, and the remainder paroled. Our Government offered to exchange man for man, but declined--on accountof the previous bad faith of the Rebels--to release the balance onparole. The Rebels also refused to make any concessions in regard to thetreatment of officers and men of colored regiments. 

7. At this juncture General B. F. Butler was appointed to the command ofthe Department of the Blackwater, which made him an ex-officioCommissioner of Exchange. The Rebels instantly refused to treat withhim, on the ground that he was outlawed by the proclamation of JeffersonDavis. General Butler very pertinently replied that this only placed himnearer their level, as Jefferson Davis and all associated with him in theRebel Government had been outlawed by the proclamation of PresidentLincoln. The Rebels scorned to notice this home thrust by the UnionGeneral. 

8. On February 12, 1864, General Butler addressed a letter to the RebelCommissioner Ould, in which be asked, for the sake of humanity, that thequestions interrupting the exchange be left temporarily in abeyance whilean informal exchange was put in operation. He would send five hundredprisoners to City Point; let them be met by a similar number of Unionprisoners. This could go on from day to day until all in each other'shands should be transferred to their respective flags. 

The five hundred sent with the General's letter were received, and fivehundred Union prisoners returned for them. Another five hundred, sentthe next day, were refused, and so this reasonable and humane propositionended in nothing. 

This was the condition of affairs in February, 1864, when the Rebelauthorities concluded to send us to Andersonville. If the reader willfix these facts in his minds I will explain other phases as they develop. 

CHAPTER XI. 

PUTTING IN THE TIME--RATIONS--COOKING UTENSILS--"FIAT" SOUP--"SPOONING"--AFRICAN NEWSPAPER VENDERS--TRADING GREENBACKS FOR CONFEDERATE MONEY--VISIT FROM JOHN MORGAN. 

The Winter days passed on, one by one, after the manner described in aformer chapter, --the mornings in ill-nature hunger; the afternoons andevenings in tolerable comfort. The rations kept growing lighter andlighter; the quantity of bread remained the same, but the meatdiminished, and occasional days would pass without any being issued. Then we receive a pint or less of soup made from the beans or peas beforementioned, but this, too, suffered continued change, in the graduallyincreasing proportion of James River water, and decreasing of that of thebeans. 

The water of the James River is doubtless excellent: it looks well--at adistance--and is said to serve the purposes of ablution and navigationadmirably. There seems to be a limit however, to the extent of itsadvantageous combination with the bean (or pea) for nutritive purposes. This, though, was or view of the case, merely, and not shared in to anyappreciably extent by the gentlemen who were managing our boarding house. We seemed to view the matter through allopathic spectacles, they throughhomoeopathic lenses. We thought that the atomic weight of peas (orbeans) and the James River fluid were about equal, which would indicatethat the proper combining proportions would be, say a bucket of beans (orpeas) to a bucket of water. They held that the nutritive potency wasincreased by the dilution, and the best results were obtainable when thesymptoms of hunger were combated by the trituration of a bucketful of thepeas-beans with a barrel of 'aqua jamesiana. '

My first experience with this "flat" soup was very instructive, if notagreeable. I had come into prison, as did most other prisoners, absolutely destitute of dishes, or cooking utensils. The well-used, half-canteen frying-pan, the blackened quart cup, and the spoon, whichformed the usual kitchen outfit of the cavalryman in the field, were inthe haversack on my saddle, and were lost to me when I separated from myhorse. Now, when we were told that we were to draw soup, I was in greatdanger of losing my ration from having no vessel in which to receive it. There were but few tin cups in the prison, and these were, of course, wanted by their owners. By great good fortune I found an empty fruit can, holding about a quart. I was also lucky enough to find a piece fromwhich to make a bail. I next manufactured a spoon and knife combinedfrom a bit of hoop-iron. 

These two humble utensils at once placed myself and my immediate chums onanother plane, as far as worldly goods were concerned. We were betteroff than the mass, and as well off as the most fortunate. It was acurious illustration of that law of political economy which teaches thatso-called intrinsic value is largely adventitious. Their possession gaveus infinitely more consideration among our fellows than would thepossession of a brown-stone front in an eligible location, furnished withhot and cold water throughout, and all the modern improvements. It was aplace where cooking utensils were in demand, and title-deeds tobrown-stone fronts were not. We were in possession of something whichevery one needed every day, and, therefore, were persons of consequenceand consideration to those around us who were present or prospectiveborrowers. 

On our side we obeyed another law of political economy: We clung to ourproperty with unrelaxing tenacity, made the best use of it in ourintercourse with our fellows, and only gave it up after our release andentry into a land where the plenitude of cooking utensils of superiorconstruction made ours valueless. Then we flung them into the sea, withlittle gratitude for the great benefit they had been to us. We were moreanxious to get rid of the many hateful recollections clustering aroundthem. 

But, to return to the alleged soup: As I started to drink my first rationit seemed to me that there was a superfluity of bugs upon its surface. Much as I wanted animal food, I did not care for fresh meat in that form. I skimmed them off carefully, so as to lose as little soup as possible. But the top layer seemed to be underlaid with another equally dense. This was also skimmed off as deftly as possible. But beneath thisappeared another layer, which, when removed, showed still another; and soon, until I had scraped to the bottom of the can, and the last of thebugs went with the last of my soup. I have before spoken of theremarkable bug fecundity of the beans (or peas). This was ademonstration of it. Every scouped out pea (or bean) which found itsway into the soup bore inside of its shell from ten to twenty of thesehard-crusted little weevil. Afterward I drank my soup without skimming. It was not that I hated the weevil less, but that I loved the soup more. It was only another step toward a closer conformity to that grand rulewhich I have made the guiding maxim of my life:

'When I must, I had better. '

I recommend this to other young men starting on their career. 

The room in which we were was barely large enough for all of us to liedown at once. Even then it required pretty close "spooning" together--so close in fact that all sleeping along one side would have to turn atonce. It was funny to watch this operation. All, for instance, would belying on their right sides. They would begin to get tired, and one ofthe wearied ones would sing out to the Sergeant who was in command of therow--

"Sergeant: let's spoon the other way. "

That individual would reply:

"All right. Attention! LEFT SPOON!!" and the whole line would at onceflop over on their left sides. 

The feet of the row that slept along the east wall on the floor below uswere in a line with the edge of the outer door, and a chalk line drawnfrom the crack between the door and the frame to the opposite wall wouldtouch, say 150 pairs of feet. They were a noisy crowd down there, andone night their noise so provoked the guard in front of the door that hecalled out to them to keep quiet or he would fire in upon them. Theygreeted this threat with a chorus profanely uncomplimentary to the purityof the guard's ancestry; they did not imply his descent a la Darwin, fromthe remote monkey, but more immediate generation by a common domesticanimal. The incensed Rebel opened the door wide enough to thrust his gunin, and he fired directly down the line of toes. His piece wasapparently loaded with buckshot, and the little balls must have struckthe legs, nipped off the toes, pierced the feet, and otherwise slightlywounded the lower extremities of fifty men. The simultaneous shriek thatwent up was deafening. It was soon found out that nobody had been hurtseriously, and there was not a little fun over the occurrence. 

One of the prisoners in Libby was Brigadier General Neal Dow, of Maine, who had then a National reputation as a Temperance advocate, and theauthor of the famous Maine Liquor Law. We, whose places were near thefront window, used to see him frequently on the street, accompanied by aguard. He was allowed, we understood, to visit our sick in the hospital. His long, snowy beard and hair gave him a venerable and commandingappearance. 

Newsboys seemed to be a thing unknown in Richmond. The papers were soldon the streets by negro men. The one who frequented our section with themorning journals had a mellow; rich baritone for which we would be gladto exchange the shrill cries of our street Arabs. We long remembered himas one of the peculiar features of Richmond. He had one unvaryingformula for proclaiming his wares. It ran in this wise:

"Great Nooze in de papahs!

"Great Nooze from Orange Coaht House, Virginny!

"Great Nooze from Alexandry, Virginny!

"Great Nooze from Washington City!

"Great Nooze from Chattanoogy, Tennessee!

"Great Nooze from Chahlston, Sou' Cahlina!

"Great Nooze in depapahs!"

It did not matter to him that the Rebels had not been at some of theseplaces for months. He would not change for such mere trifles as theentire evaporation of all possible interest connected with Chattanoogaand Alexandria. He was a true Bourbon Southerner--he learned nothing andforgot nothing. 

There was a considerable trade driven between the prisoners and the guardat the door. This was a very lucrative position for the latter, and menof a commercial turn of mind generally managed to get stationed there. The blockade had cut off the Confederacy's supplies from the outer world, and the many trinkets about a man's person were in good demand at highprices. The men of the Army of the Potomac, who were paid regularly, and were always near their supplies, had their pockets filled with combs, silk handkerchiefs, knives, neckties, gold pens, pencils, silver watches, playing cards, dice, etc. Such of these as escaped appropriation bytheir captors and Dick Turner, were eagerly bought by the guards, whopaid fair prices in Confederate money, or traded wheat bread, tobacco, daily papers, etc. , for them. 

There was also considerable brokerage in money, and the manner of doingthis was an admirable exemplification of the folly of the "fiat" moneyidea. The Rebels exhausted their ingenuity in framing laws to sustainthe purchasing power of their paper money. It was made legal tender forall debts public and private; it was decreed that the man who refused totake it was a public enemy; all the considerations of patriotism wererallied to its support, and the law provided that any citizens foundtrafficking in the money of the enemy--i. E. , greenbacks, should sufferimprisonment in the Penitentiary, and any soldier so offending shouldsuffer death. 

Notwithstanding all this, in Richmond, the head and heart of theConfederacy, in January, 1864--long before the Rebel cause began to lookat all desperate--it took a dollar to buy such a loaf of bread as nowsells for ten cents; a newspaper was a half dollar, and everything elsein proportion. And still worse: There was not a day during our stay inRichmond but what one could go to the hole in the door before which theguard was pacing and call out in a loud whisper:

"Say, Guard: do you want to buy some greenbacks?"

And be sure that the reply would be, after a furtive glance around to seethat no officer was watching:

"Yes; how much do you want for them?"

The reply was then: "Ten for one. "

"All right; how much have you got?"

The Yankee would reply; the Rebel would walk to the farther end of hisbeat, count out the necessary amount, and, returning, put up one handwith it, while with the other he caught hold of one end of the Yankee'sgreenback. At the word, both would release their holds simultaneously, the exchange was complete, and the Rebel would pace industriously up anddown his beat with the air of the school boy who "ain't been a-doin'nothing. "

There was never any risk in approaching any guard with a proposition ofthis kind. I never heard of one refusing to trade for greenbacks, and ifthe men on guard could not be restrained by these stringent laws, whathope could there be of restraining anybody else?

One day we were favored with a visit from the redoubtable General John H. Morgan, next to J. E. B. Stuart the greatest of Rebel cavalry leaders. He had lately escaped from the Ohio Penitentiary. He was invited toRichmond to be made a Major General, and was given a grand ovation by thecitizens and civic Government. He came into our building to visit anumber of the First Kentucky Cavalry (loyal)--captured at NewPhiladelphia, East Tennessee--whom he was anxious to have exchanged formen of his own regiment--the First Kentucky Cavalry (Rebel)--who werecaptured at the same time he was. I happened to get very close to himwhile he was standing there talking to his old acquaintances, and I madea mental photograph of him, which still retains all its originaldistinctness. He was a tall, heavy man, with a full, coarse, andsomewhat dull face, and lazy, sluggish gray eyes. His long black hairwas carefully oiled, and turned under at the ends, as was the custom withthe rural beaux some years ago. His face was clean shaved, except alarge, sandy goatee. He wore a high silk hat, a black broadcloth coat, Kentucky jeans pantaloons, neatly fitting boots, and no vest. There wasnothing remotely suggestive of unusual ability or force of character, andI thought as I studied him that the sting of George D. Prentice's bon motabout him was in its acrid truth. Said Mr. Prentice:

"Why don't somebody put a pistol to Basil Duke's head, and blow JohnMorgan's brains out!" [Basil Duke was John Morgan's right hand man. ]

CHAPTER XII. 

REMARKS AS TO NOMENCLATURE--VACCINATION AND ITS EFFECTS--"N'YAARKER'S"--THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR METHODS OF OPERATING. 

Before going any further in this narrative it may be well to state thatthe nomenclature employed is not used in any odious or disparaging sense. It is simply the adoption of the usual terms employed by the soldiers ofboth sides in speaking to or of each other. We habitually spoke of themand to them, as "Rebels, " and "Johnnies ;" they of and to us, as "Yanks, "and "Yankees. " To have said "Confederates, " "Southerners, ""Secessionists, " or "Federalists, " "Unionists, " "Northerners" or"Nationalists, " would have seemed useless euphemism. The plainer termssuited better, and it was a day when things were more important thannames. 

For some inscrutable reason the Rebels decided to vaccinate us all. Why they did this has been one of the unsolved problems of my life. It is true that there was small pox in the City, and among the prisonersat Danville; but that any consideration for our safety should have ledthem to order general inoculation is not among the reasonable inferences. But, be that as it may, vaccination was ordered, and performed. By greatgood luck I was absent from the building with the squad drawing rations, when our room was inoculated, so I escaped what was an infliction to all, and fatal to many. The direst consequences followed the operation. Foul ulcers appeared on various parts of the bodies of the vaccinated. In many instances the arms literally rotted off; and death followed froma corruption of the blood. Frequently the faces, and other parts ofthose who recovered, were disfigured by the ghastly cicatrices of healedulcers. A special friend of mine, Sergeant Frank Beverstock--then amember of the Third Virginia Cavalry, (loyal), and after the war a bankerin Bowling Green, O. , --bore upon his temple to his dying day, (whichoccurred a year ago), a fearful scar, where the flesh had sloughed offfrom the effects of the virus that had tainted his blood. 

This I do not pretend to account for. We thought at the time that theRebels had deliberately poisoned the vaccine matter with syphiliticvirus, and it was so charged upon them. I do not now believe that thiswas so; I can hardly think that members of the humane profession ofmedicine would be guilty of such subtle diabolism--worse even thanpoisoning the wells from which an enemy must drink. The explanation withwhich I have satisfied myself is that some careless or stupidpractitioner took the vaccinating lymph from diseased human bodies, and thus infected all with the blood venom, without any conception ofwhat he was doing. The low standard of medical education in the Southmakes this theory quite plausible. 

We now formed the acquaintance of a species of human vermin that unitedwith the Rebels, cold, hunger, lice and the oppression of distraint, toleave nothing undone that could add to the miseries of our prison life. 

These were the fledglings of the slums and dives of New York--graduatesof that metropolitan sink of iniquity where the rogues and criminals ofthe whole world meet for mutual instruction in vice. 

They were men who, as a rule, had never known, a day of honesty andcleanliness in their misspent lives; whose fathers, brothers and constantcompanions were roughs, malefactors and, felons; whose mothers, wives andsisters were prostitutes, procuresses and thieves; men who had frominfancy lived in an atmosphere of sin, until it saturated every fiber oftheir being as a dweller in a jungle imbibes malaria by every one of his, millions of pores, until his very marrow is surcharged with it. 

They included representatives from all nationalities, and theirdescendants, but the English and Irish elements predominated. They hadan argot peculiar to themselves. It was partly made up of the "flash"language of the London thieves, amplified and enriched by the cantvocabulary and the jargon of crime of every European tongue. They spokeit with a peculiar accent and intonation that made them instantlyrecognizable from the roughs of all other Cities. They called themselves"N'Yaarkers;" we came to know them as "Raiders. "

If everything in the animal world has its counterpart among men, thenthese were the wolves, jackals and hyenas of the race at once cowardlyand fierce--audaciously bold when the power of numbers was on their side, and cowardly when confronted with resolution by anything like an equalityof strength. 

Like all other roughs and rascals of whatever degree, they were utterlyworthless as soldiers. There may have been in the Army some habitualcorner loafer, some fistic champion of the bar-room and brothel, someTerror of Plug Uglyville, who was worth the salt in the hard tack heconsumed, but if there were, I did not form his acquaintance, and I neverheard of any one else who did. It was the rule that the man who was thereadiest in the use of fist and slungshot at home had the greatestdiffidence about forming a close acquaintance with cold lead in theneighborhood of the front. Thousands of the so-called "dangerousclasses" were recruited, from whom the Government did not receive so muchservice as would pay for the buttons on their uniforms. People expectedthat they would make themselves as troublesome to the Rebels as they wereto good citizens and the Police, but they were only pugnacious to theprovost guard, and terrible to the people in the rear of the Army who hadanything that could be stolen. 

The highest type of soldier which the world has yet produced is theintelligent, self-respecting American boy, with home, and father andmother and friends behind him, and duty in front beckoning him on. In the sixty centuries that war has been a profession no man has enteredits ranks so calmly resolute in confronting danger, so shrewd andenergetic in his aggressiveness, so tenacious of the defense and theassault, so certain to rise swiftly to the level of every emergency, asthe boy who, in the good old phrase, had been "well-raised" in aGodfearing home, and went to the field in obedience to a conviction ofduty. His unfailing courage and good sense won fights that theincompetency or cankering jealousy of commanders had lost. High officerswere occasionally disloyal, or willing to sacrifice their country topersonal pique; still more frequently they were ignorant and inefficient;but the enlisted man had more than enough innate soldiership to makeamends for these deficiencies, and his superb conduct often broughthonors and promotions to those only who deserved shame and disaster. 

Our "N'Yaarkers, " swift to see any opportunity for dishonest gain, hadtaken to bounty-jumping, or, as they termed it, "leppin' the bounty, "for a livelihood. Those who were thrust in upon us had followed thisuntil it had become dangerous, and then deserted to the Rebels. Thelatter kept them at Castle Lightning for awhile, and then, rightlyestimating their character, and considering that it was best to tradethem off for a genuine Rebel soldier, sent them in among us, to beexchanged regularly with us. There was not so much good faith as goodpolicy shown by this. It was a matter of indifference to the Rebels howsoon our Government shot these deserters after getting them in its handsagain. They were only anxious to use them to get their own men back. 

The moment they came into contact with us our troubles began. They stolewhenever opportunities offered, and they were indefatigable in makingthese offer; they robbed by actual force, whenever force would avail;and more obsequious lick-spittles to power never existed--they wereperpetually on the look-out for a chance to curry favor by betrayingsome plan or scheme to those who guarded us. 

I saw one day a queer illustration of the audacious side of thesefellows' characters, and it shows at the same time how brazen effronterywill sometimes get the better of courage. In a room in an adjacentbuilding were a number of these fellows, and a still greater number ofEast Tennesseeans. These latter were simple, ignorant folks, butreasonably courageous. About fifty of them were sitting in a group inone corner of the room, and near them a couple or three "N'Yaarkers. "Suddenly one of the latter said with an oath:

"I was robbed last night; I lost two silver watches, a couple of rings, and about fifty dollars in greenbacks. I believe some of you fellerswent through me. "

This was all pure invention; he no more had the things mentioned thanhe had purity of heart and a Christian spirit, but the unsophisticatedTennesseeans did not dream of disputing his statement, and answered inchorus:

"Oh, no, mister; we didn't take your things; we ain't that kind. "

This was like the reply of the lamb to the wolf, in the fable, and theN'Yaarker retorted with a simulated storm of passion, and a torrent ofoaths:

"---- ---- I know ye did; I know some uv yez has got them; stand up aginthe wall there till I search yez!"

And that whole fifty men, any one of whom was physically equal to theN'Yaarker, and his superior in point of real courage, actually stoodagainst the wall, and submitted to being searched and having taken fromthem the few Confederate bills they had, and such trinkets as thesearcher took a fancy to. 

I was thoroughly disgusted. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

BELLE ISLE--TERRIBLE SUFFERING FROM COLD AND HUNGER--FATE OF LIEUTENANTBOISSEUX'S DOG--OUR COMPANY MYSTERY--TERMINATION OF ALL HOPES OF ITSSOLUTION. 

In February my chum--B. B. Andrews, now a physician in Astoria, Illinois--was brought into our building, greatly to my delight and astonishment, and from him I obtained the much desired news as to the fate of mycomrades. He told me they had been sent to Belle Isle, whither he hadgone, but succumbing to the rigors of that dreadful place, he had beentaken to the hospital, and, upon his convalesence, placed in our prison. 

Our men were suffering terribly on the island. It was low, damp, andswept by the bleak, piercing winds that howled up and down the surface ofthe James. The first prisoners placed on the island had been given tentsthat afforded them some shelter, but these were all occupied when ourbattalion came in, so that they were compelled to lie on the snow andfrozen ground, without shelter, covering of any kind, or fire. Duringthis time the cold had been so intense that the James had frozen overthree times. 

The rations had been much worse than ours. The so-called soup had beendiluted to a ridiculous thinness, and meat had wholly disappeared. So intense became the craving for animal food, that one day whenLieutenant Boisseux--the Commandant--strolled into the camp with hisbeloved white bull-terrier, which was as fat as a Cheshire pig, thelatter was decoyed into a tent, a blanket thrown over him, his throat cutwithin a rod of where his master was standing, and he was then skinned, cut up, cooked, and furnished a savory meal to many hungry men. 

When Boisseux learned of the fate of his four-footed friend he was, of course, intensely enraged, but that was all the good it did him. The only revenge possible was to sentence more prisoners to ride thecruel wooden horse which he used as a means of punishment. 

Four of our company were already dead. Jacob Lowry and John Beach werestanding near the gate one day when some one snatched the guard's blanketfrom the post where he had hung it, and ran. The enraged sentry leveledhis gun and fired into the crowd. The balls passed through Lowry's andBeach's breasts. Then Charley Osgood, son of our Lieutenant, a quiet, fair-haired, pleasant-spoken boy, but as brave and earnest as his gallantfather, sank under the combination of hunger and cold. One stingingmorning he was found stiff and stark, on the hard ground, his bright, frank blue eyes glazed over in death. 

One of the mysteries of our company was a tall, slender, elderlyScotchman, who appeared on the rolls as William Bradford. What his pastlife had been, where he had lived, what his profession, whether marriedor single, no one ever knew. He came to us while in Camp of Instructionnear Springfield, Illinois, and seemed to have left all his past behindhim as he crossed the line of sentries around the camp. He neverreceived any letters, and never wrote any; never asked for a furlough orpass, and never expressed a wish to be elsewhere than in camp. He wascourteous and pleasant, but very reserved. He interfered with no one, obeyed orders promptly and without remark, and was always present forduty. Scrupulously neat in dress, always as clean-shaved as anold-fashioned gentleman of the world, with manners and conversation thatshowed him to have belonged to a refined and polished circle, he wasevidently out of place as a private soldier in a company of reckless andnone-too-refined young Illinois troopers, but he never availed himself ofany of the numerous opportunities offered to change his associations. His elegant penmanship would have secured him an easy berth and bettersociety at headquarters, but he declined to accept a detail. He becamean exciting mystery to a knot of us imaginative young cubs, who sorted upout of the reminiscential rag-bag of high colors and strong contrastswith which the sensational literature that we most affected hadplentifully stored our minds, a half-dozen intensely emotional careersfor him. We spent much time in mentally trying these on, and discussingwhich fitted him best. We were always expecting a denouement that wouldcome like a lightning flash and reveal his whole mysterious past, showinghim to have been the disinherited scion of some noble house, a man ofhigh station, who was expiating some fearful crime; an accomplishedvillain eluding his pursuers--in short, a Somebody who would be a fittinghero for Miss Braddon's or Wilkie Collins's literary purposes. We nevergot but two clues of his past, and they were faint ones. One day, heleft lying near me a small copy of "Paradise Lost, " that he alwayscarried with him. Turning over its leaves I found all of Milton's bitterinvectives against women heavily underscored. Another time, while onguard with him, he spent much of his time in writing some Latin verses invery elegant chirography upon the white painted boards of a fence alongwhich his beat ran. We pressed in all the available knowledge of Latinabout camp, and found that the tenor of the verses was veryuncomplimentary to that charming sex which does us the honor of being ourmothers and sweethearts. These evidences we accepted as sufficientdemonstration that there was a woman at the bottom of the mystery, andmade us more impatient for further developments. These were never tocome. Bradford pined away an Belle Isle, and grew weaker, but no lessreserved, each day. At length, one bitter cold night ended it all. He was found in the morning stone dead, with his iron-gray hair frozenfast to the ground, upon which he lay. Our mystery had to remainunsolved. There was nothing about his person to give any hint as to hispast. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

HOPING FOR EXCHANGE--AN EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES--OFF FOR ANDERSONVILLE--UNCERTAINTY AS TO OUR DESTINATION--ARRIVAL ATANDERSONVILLE. 

As each lagging day closed, we confidently expected that the next wouldbring some news of the eagerly-desired exchange. We hopefully assuredeach other that the thing could not be delayed much longer; that theSpring was near, the campaign would soon open, and each government wouldmake an effort to get all its men into the field, and this would bringabout a transfer of prisoners. A Sergeant of the Seventh IndianaInfantry stated his theory to me this way:

"You know I'm just old lightnin' on chuck-a-luck. Now the way I bet isthis: I lay down, say on the ace, an' it don't come up; I just double mybet on the ace, an' keep on doublin' every time it loses, until at lastit comes up an' then I win a bushel o' money, and mebbe bust the bank. You see the thing's got to come up some time; an' every time it don'tcome up makes it more likely to come up the next time. It's just thesame way with this 'ere exchange. The thing's got to happen some day, an' every day that it don't happen increases the chances that it willhappen the next day. "

Some months later I folded the sanguine Sergeant's stiffening handstogether across his fleshless ribs, and helped carry his body out to thedead-house at Andersonville, in order to get a piece of wood to cook myration of meal with. 

On the evening of the 17th of February, 1864, we were ordered to getready to move at daybreak the next morning. We were certain this couldmean nothing else than exchange, and our exaltation was such that we didlittle sleeping that night. The morning was very cold, but we sang andjoked as we marched over the creaking bridge, on our way to the cars. We were packed so tightly in these that it was impossible to even sitdown, and we rolled slow ly away after a wheezing engine to Petersburg, whence we expected to march to the exchange post. We reached Petersburgbefore noon, and the cars halted there along time, we momentarilyexpecting an order to get out. Then the train started up and moved outof the City toward the southeast. This was inexplicable, but after wehad proceeded this way for several hours some one conceived the idea thatthe Rebels, to avoid treating with Butler, were taking us into theDepartment of some other commander to exchange us. This explanationsatisfied us, and our spirits rose again. 

Night found us at Gaston, N. C. , where we received a few crackers forrations, and changed cars. It was dark, and we resorted to a littlestrategy to secure more room. About thirty of us got into a tight boxcar, and immediately announced that it was too full to admit any more. When an officer came along with another squad to stow away, we would yellout to him to take some of the men out, as we were crowded unbearably. In the mean time everybody in the car would pack closely around the door, so as to give the impression that the car was densely crowded. The Rebelwould look convinced, and demand:

"Why, how many men have you got in de cah?"

Then one of us would order the imaginary host in the invisible recessesto--

"Stand still there, and be counted, " while he would gravely count up toone hundred or one hundred and twenty, which was the utmost limit of thecar, and the Rebel would hurry off to put his prisoners somewhere else. We managed to play this successfully during the whole journey, and notonly obtained room to lie down in the car, but also drew three or fourtimes as many rations as were intended for us, so that while we at notime had enough, we were farther from starvation than our less strategiccompanions. 

The second afternoon we arrived at Raleigh, the capitol of NorthCarolina, and were camped in a piece of timber, and shortly after darkorders were issued to us all to lie flat on the ground and not rise uptill daylight. About the middle of the night a man belonging to a NewJersey regiment, who had apparently forgotten the order, stood up, andwas immediately shot dead by the guard. 

For four or five days more the decrepit little locomotive strained along, dragging after it the rattling' old cars. The scenery was intenselymonotonous. It was a flat, almost unending, stretch of pine barrens andthe land so poor that a disgusted Illinoisan, used to the fertility ofthe great American Bottom, said rather strongly, that, "By George, they'd have to manure this ground before they could even makebrick out of it. "

It was a surprise to all of us who had heard so much of the wealth ofVirginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to find the soil asterile sand bank, interspersed with swamps. 

We had still no idea of where we were going. We only knew that ourgeneral course was southward, and that we had passed through theCarolinas, and were in Georgia. We furbished up our school knowledge ofgeography and endeavored to recall something of the location of Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia and Augusta, through which we passed, but the attemptwas not a success. 

Late on the afternoon of the 25th of February the Seventh IndianaSergeant approached me with the inquiry:

"Do you know where Macon is?"

The place had not then become as well known as it was afterward. 

It seemed to me that I had read something of Macon in Revolutionaryhistory, and that it was a fort on the sea coast. He said that the guardhad told him that we were to be taken to a point near that place, and weagreed that it was probably a new place of exchange. A little later wepassed through the town of Macon, Ga, and turned upon a road that ledalmost due south. 

About midnight the train stopped, and we were ordered off. We were inthe midst of a forest of tall trees that loaded the air with the heavybalsamic odor peculiar to pine trees. A few small rude houses werescattered around near. 

Stretching out into the darkness was a double row of great heaps ofburning pitch pine, that smoked and flamed fiercely, and lit up a littlespace around in the somber forest with a ruddy glare. Between these tworows lay a road, which we were ordered to take. 

The scene was weird and uncanny. I had recently read the "Iliad, " andthe long lines of huge fires reminded me of that scene in the first book, where the Greeks burn on the sea shore the bodies of those smitten byApollo's pestilential-arrows

 For nine long nights, through all the dusky air, The pyres, thick flaming shot a dismal glare. 

Five hundred weary men moved along slowly through double lines of guards. Five hundred men marched silently towards the gates that were to shut outlife and hope from most of them forever. A quarter of a mile from therailroad we came to a massive palisade of great squared logs standingupright in the ground. The fires blazed up and showed us a section ofthese, and two massive wooden gates, with heavy iron hinges and bolts. They swung open as we stood there and we passed through into the spacebeyond. 

We were in Andersonville. 

CHAPTER XV. 

GEORGIA--A LEAN AND HUNGRY LAND--DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UPPER AND LOWERGEORGIA--THE PILLAGE OF ANDERSONVILLE. 

As the next nine months of the existence of those of us who survived werespent in intimate connection with the soil of Georgia, and, as itexercised a potential influence upon our comfort and well-being, orrather lack of these--a mention of some of its peculiar characteristicsmay help the reader to a fuller comprehension of the conditionssurrounding us--our environment, as Darwin would say. 

Georgia, which, next to Texas, is the largest State in the South, and hasnearly twenty-five per cent. More area than the great State of New York, is divided into two distinct and widely differing sections, by ageological line extending directly across the State from Augusta, on theSavannah River, through Macon, on the Ocmulgee, to Columbus, on theChattahoochie. That part lying to the north and west of this line isusually spoken of as "Upper Georgia;" while that lying to the south andeast, extending to the Atlantic Ocean and the Florida line, is called"Lower Georgia. " In this part of the State--though far removed from eachother--were the prisons of Andersonville, Savannah, Millen andBlackshear, in which we were incarcerated one after the other. 

Upper Georgia--the capital of which is Atlanta--is a fruitful, productive, metalliferous region, that will in time become quite wealthy. Lower Georgia, which has an extent about equal to that of Indiana, is notonly poorer now than a worn-out province of Asia Minor, but in allprobability will ever remain so. 

It is a starved, sterile land, impressing one as a desert in the firststages of reclamation into productive soil, or a productive soil in thelast steps of deterioration into a desert. It is a vast expanse of arid, yellow sand, broken at intervals by foul swamps, with a jungle-lifegrowth of unwholesome vegetation, and teeming With venomous snakes, andall manner of hideous crawling thing. 

The original forest still stands almost unbroken on this wide stretch ofthirty thousand square miles, but it does not cover it as we say offorests in more favored lands. The tall, solemn pines, upright andsymmetrical as huge masts, and wholly destitute of limbs, except thelittle, umbrella-like crest at the very top, stand far apart from eachother in an unfriendly isolation. There is no fraternal interlacing ofbranches to form a kindly, umbrageous shadow. Between them is no genialundergrowth of vines, shrubs, and demi-trees, generous in fruits, berriesand nuts, such as make one of the charms of Northern forests. On theground is no rich, springing sod of emerald green, fragrant with theelusive sweetness of white clover, and dainty flowers, but a sparse, wiry, famished grass, scattered thinly over the surface in tufts andpatches, like the hair on a mangy cur. 

The giant pines seem to have sucked up into their immense boles all thenutriment in the earth, and starved out every minor growth. So wide andclean is the space between them, that one can look through the forest inany direction for miles, with almost as little interference with the viewas on a prairie. In the swampier parts the trees are lower, and theirlimbs are hung with heavy festoons of the gloomy Spanish moss, or "deathmoss, " as it is more frequently called, because where it grows rankestthe malaria is the deadliest. Everywhere Nature seems sad, subdued andsomber. 

I have long entertained a peculiar theory to account for the decadenceand ruin of countries. My reading of the world's history seems to teachme that when a strong people take possession of a fertile land, theyreduce it to cultivation, thrive upon its bountifulness, multiply intomillions the mouths to be fed from it, tax it to the last limit ofproduction of the necessities of life, take from it continually, and givenothing back, starve and overwork it as cruel, grasping men do a servantor a beast, and when at last it breaks down under the strain, it revengesitself by starving many of them with great famines, while the others gooff in search of new countries to put through the same process ofexhaustion. We have seen one country after another undergo this processas the seat of empire took its westward way, from the cradle of the raceon the banks of the Oxus to the fertile plains in the Valley of theEuphrates. Impoverishing these, men next sought the Valley of the Nile, then the Grecian Peninsula; next Syracuse and the Italian Peninsula, then the Iberian Peninsula, and the African shores of the Mediterranean. Exhausting all these, they were deserted for the French, German andEnglish portions of Europe. The turn of the latter is now come; faminesare becoming terribly frequent, and mankind is pouring into the virginfields of America. 

Lower Georgia, the Carolinas and Eastern Virginia have all thecharacteristics of these starved and worn-out lands. It would seem asif, away back in the distance of ages, some numerous and civilized racehad drained from the soil the last atom of food-producing constituents, and that it is now slowly gathering back, as the centuries pass, theelements that have been wrung from the land. 

Lower Georgia is very thinly settled. Much of the land is still in thehands of the Government. The three or four railroads which pass throughit have little reference to local traffic. There are no towns along themas a rule; stations are made every ten miles, and not named, butnumbered, as "Station No. 4"--"No. 10", etc. The roads were built asthrough lines, to bring to the seaboard the rich products of theinterior. 

Andersonville is one of the few stations dignified with a same, probablybecause it contained some half dozen of shabby houses, whereas at theothers there was usually nothing more than a mere open shed, to sheltergoods and travelers. It is on a rudely constructed, rickety railroad, that runs from Macon to Albany, the head of navigation on the FlintRiver, which is, one hundred and six miles from Macon, and two hundredand fifty from the Gulf of Mexico. Andersonville is about sixty milesfrom Macon, and, consequently, about three hundred miles from the Gulf. The camp was merely a hole cut in the wilderness. It was as remote apoint from, our armies, as they then lay, as the Southern Confederacycould give. The nearest was Sherman, at Chattanooga, four hundred milesaway, and on the other side of a range of mountains hundreds of mileswide. 

To us it seemed beyond the last forlorn limits of civilization. We feltthat we were more completely at the mercy of our foes than ever. Whilein Richmond we were in the heart of the Confederacy; we were in the midstof the Rebel military and, civil force, and were surrounded on every handby visible evidences of the great magnitude of that power, but this, while it enforced our ready submission, did not overawe us depressingly, We knew that though the Rebels were all about us in great force, our ownmen were also near, and in still greater force--that while they were verystrong our army was still stronger, and there was no telling what daythis superiority of strength, might be demonstrated in such a way as todecisively benefit us. 

But here we felt as did the Ancient Mariner:

 Alone on a wide, wide sea, So lonely 'twas that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

WAKING UP IN ANDERSONVILLE--SOME DESCRIPTION OF THE PLACE--OUR FIRSTMAIL--BUILDING SHELTER--GEN. WINDER--HIMSELF AND LINEAGE. 

We roused up promptly with the dawn to take a survey of our new abidingplace. We found ourselves in an immense pen, about one thousand feetlong by eight hundred wide, as a young surveyor--a member of theThirty-fourth Ohio--informed us after he had paced it off. He estimatedthat it contained about sixteen acres. The walls were formed by pinelogs twenty-five feet long, from two to three feet in diameter, hewnsquare, set into the ground to a depth of five feet, and placed so closetogether as to leave no crack through which the country outside could beseen. There being five feet of the logs in the ground, the wall was, ofcourse, twenty feet high. This manner of enclosure was in some respectssuperior to a wall of masonry. It was equally unscalable, and much moredifficult to undermine or batter down. 

The pen was longest due north and south. It was divided in the centerby a creek about a yard wide and ten inches deep, running from west toeast. On each side of this was a quaking bog of slimy ooze one hundredand fifty feet wide, and so yielding that one attempting to walk upon itwould sink to the waist. From this swamp the sand-hills sloped north andsouth to the stockade. All the trees inside the stockade, save two, hadbeen cut down and used in its construction. All the rank vegetation ofthe swamp had also been cut off. 

There were two entrances to the stockade, one on each side of the creek, midway between it and the ends, and called respectively the "North Gate"and the "South Gate. " These were constructed double, by buildingsmaller stockades around them on the outside, with another set of gates. When prisoners or wagons with rations were brought in, they were firstbrought inside the outer gates, which were carefully secured, before theinner gates were opened. This was done to prevent the gates beingcarried by a rush by those confined inside. 

At regular intervals along the palisades were little perches, upon whichstood guards, who overlooked the whole inside of the prison. 

The only view we had of the outside was that obtained by looking from thehighest points of the North or South Sides across the depression wherethe stockade crossed the swamp. In this way we could see about fortyacres at a time of the adjoining woodland, or say one hundred and sixtyacres altogether, and this meager landscape had to content us for thenext half year. 

Before our inspection was finished, a wagon drove in with rations, and aquart of meal, a sweet potato and a few ounces of salt beef were issuedto each one of us. 

In a few minutes we were all hard at work preparing our first meal inAndersonville. The debris of the forest left a temporary abundance offuel, and we had already a cheerful fire blazing for every little squad. There were a number of tobacco presses in the rooms we occupied inRichmond, and to each of these was a quantity of sheets of tin, evidentlyused to put between the layers of tobacco. The deft hands of themechanics among us bent these up into square pans, which were real handycooking utensils, holding about--a quart. Water was carried in them fromthe creek; the meal mixed in them to a dough, or else boiled as mush inthe same vessels; the potatoes were boiled; and their final service wasto hold a little meal to be carefully browned, and then water boiled uponit, so as to form a feeble imitation of coffee. I found my education atJonesville in the art of baking a hoe-cake now came in good play, bothfor myself and companions. Taking one of the pieces of tin which had notyet been made into a pan, we spread upon it a layer of dough about ahalf-inch thick. Propping this up nearly upright before the fire, it wassoon nicely browned over. This process made it sweat itself loose fromthe tin, when it was turned over and the bottom browned also. Save thatit was destitute of salt, it was quite a toothsome bit of nutriment for ahungry man, and I recommend my readers to try making a "pone" of thiskind once, just to see what it was like. 

The supreme indifference with which the Rebels always treated the matterof cooking utensils for us, excited my wonder. It never seemed to occurto them that we could have any more need of vessels for our food thancattle or swine. Never, during my whole prison life, did I see so muchas a tin cup or a bucket issued to a prisoner. Starving men were drivento all sorts of shifts for want of these. Pantaloons or coats werepulled off and their sleeves or legs used to draw a mess's meal in. Boots were common vessels for carrying water, and when the feet of thesegave way the legs were ingeniously closed up with pine pegs, so as toform rude leathern buckets. Men whose pocket knives had escaped thesearch at the gates made very ingenious little tubs and buckets, andthese devices enabled us to get along after a fashion. 

After our meal was disposed of, we held a council on the situation. Though we had been sadly disappointed in not being exchanged, it seemedthat on the whole our condition had been bettered. This first ration wasa decided improvement on those of the Pemberton building; we had left thesnow and ice behind at Richmond--or rather at some place between Raleigh, N. C. , and Columbia, S. C. --and the air here, though chill, was notnipping, but bracing. It looked as if we would have a plenty of wood forshelter and fuel, it was certainly better to have sixteen acres to roamover than the stiffing confines of a building; and, still better, itseemed as if there would be plenty of opportunities to get beyond thestockade, and attempt a journey through the woods to that blissful land--"Our lines. "

We settled down to make the best of things. A Rebel Sergeant came inpresently and arranged us in hundreds. We subdivided these into messesof twenty-five, and began devising means for shelter. Nothing showed theinborn capacity of the Northern soldier to take care of himself betterthan the way in which we accomplished this with the rude materials at ourcommand. No ax, spade nor mattock was allowed us by the Rebels, whotreated us in regard to these the same as in respect to culinary vessels. The only tools were a few pocket-knives, and perhaps half-a-dozenhatchets which some infantrymen-principally members of the ThirdMichigan--were allowed to retain. Yet, despite all these drawbacks, wehad quite a village of huts erected in a few days, --nearly enough, infact, to afford tolerable shelter for the whole five hundred of usfirst-comers. 

The wither and poles that grew in the swamp were bent into the shape ofthe semi-circular bows that support the canvas covers of army wagons, andboth ends thrust in the ground. These formed the timbers of ourdwellings. They were held in place by weaving in, basket-wise, a networkof briers and vines. Tufts of the long leaves which are thedistinguishing characteristic of the Georgia pine (popularly known as the"long-leaved pine") were wrought into this network until a thatch wasformed, that was a fair protection against the rain--it was like theIrishman's unglazed window-sash, which "kep' out the coarsest uv thecold. "

The results accomplished were as astonishing to us as to the Rebels, who would have lain unsheltered upon the sand until bleached out likefield-rotted flax, before thinking to protect themselves in this way. As our village was approaching completion, the Rebel Sergeant who calledthe roll entered. He was very odd-looking. The cervical muscles weredistorted in such a way as to suggest to us the name of "Wry-neckedSmith, " by which we always designated him. Pete Bates, of the ThirdMichigan, who was the wag of our squad, accounted for Smith's conditionby saying that while on dress parade once the Colonel of Smith's regimenthad commanded "eyes right, " and then forgot to give the order "front. "Smith, being a good soldier, had kept his eyes in the position of gazingat the buttons of the third man to the right, waiting for the order torestore them to their natural direction, until they had becomepermanently fixed in their obliquity and he was compelled to go throughlife taking a biased view of all things. 

Smith walked in, made a diagonal survey of the encampment, which, if hehad ever seen "Mitchell's Geography, " probably reminded him of thepicture of a Kaffir village, in that instructive but awfully dull book, and then expressed the opinion that usually welled up to every Rebel'slips:

"Well, I'll be durned, if you Yanks don't just beat the devil. "

Of course, we replied with the well-worn prison joke, that we supposed wedid, as we beat the Rebels, who were worse than the devil. 

There rode in among us, a few days after our arrival, an old man whosecollar bore the wreathed stars of a Major General. Heavy white locksfell from beneath his slouched hat, nearly to his shoulders. Sunken grayeyes, too dull and cold to light up, marked a hard, stony face, thesalient feature of which was a thin-upped, compressed mouth, with cornersdrawn down deeply--the mouth which seems the world over to be the indexof selfish, cruel, sulky malignance. It is such a mouth as has theschool-boy--the coward of the play ground, who delights in pulling offthe wings of flies. It is such a mouth as we can imagine someremorseless inquisitor to have had--that is, not an inquisitor filledwith holy zeal for what he mistakenly thought the cause of Christdemanded, but a spleeny, envious, rancorous shaveling, who tortured menfrom hatred of their superiority to him, and sheer love of inflictingpain. 

The rider was John H. Winder, Commissary General of Prisoners, Baltimorean renegade and the malign genius to whose account should becharged the deaths of more gallant men than all the inquisitors of theworld ever slew by the less dreadful rack and wheel. It was he who inAugust could point to the three thousand and eighty-one new made gravesfor that month, and exultingly tell his hearer that he was "doing morefor the Confederacy than twenty regiments. "

His lineage was in accordance with his character. His father was thatGeneral William H. Winder, whose poltroonery at Bladensburg, in 1814, nullified the resistance of the gallant Commodore Barney, and gaveWashington to the British. 

The father was a coward and an incompetent; the son, always cautiouslydistant from the scene of hostilities, was the tormentor of those whomthe fortunes of war, and the arms of brave men threw into his hands. 

Winder gazed at us stonily for a few minutes without speaking, and, turning, rode out again. 

Our troubles, from that hour, rapidly increased. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PLANTATION NEGROS--NOT STUPID TO BE LOYAL--THEIR DITHYRAMBIC MUSIC--COPPERHEAD OPINION OF LONGFELLOW. 

The stockade was not quite finished at the time of our arrival--a gap ofseveral hundred feet appearing at the southwest corner. A gang of abouttwo hundred negros were at work felling trees, hewing legs, and placingthem upright in the trenches. We had an opportunity--soon to disappearforever--of studying the workings of the "peculiar institution" in itsvery home. The negros were of the lowest field-hand class, strong, dull, ox-like, but each having in our eyes an admixture of cunning andsecretiveness that their masters pretended was not in them. Theirdemeanor toward us illustrated this. We were the objects of the mostsupreme interest to them, but when near us and in the presence of a whiteRebel, this interest took the shape of stupid, open-eyed, open-mouthedwonder, something akin to the look on the face of the rustic lout, gazingfor the first time upon a locomotive or a steam threshing machine. But if chance threw one of them near us when he thought himselfunobserved by the Rebels, the blank, vacant face lighted up with anentirely different expression. He was no longer the credulous yokel whobelieved the Yankees were only slightly modified devils, ready at anyinstant to return to their original horn-and-tail condition and snatchhim away to the bluest kind of perdition; he knew, apparently quite aswell as his master, that they were in some way his friends and allies, and he lost no opportunity in communicating his appreciation of thatfact, and of offering his services in any possible way. And these offerswere sincere. It is the testimony of every Union prisoner in the Souththat he was never betrayed by or disappointed in a field-negro, but couldalways approach any one of them with perfect confidence in his extendingall the aid in his power, whether as a guide to escape, as sentinel tosignal danger, or a purveyor of food. These services were frequentlyattended with the greatest personal risk, but they were none the lessreadily undertaken. This applies only to the field-hands; the houseservants were treacherous and wholly unreliable. Very many of our menwho managed to get away from the prisons were recaptured through theirbetrayal by house servants, but none were retaken where a field handcould prevent it. 

We were much interested in watching the negro work. They wove in a greatdeal of their peculiar, wild, mournful music, whenever the character ofthe labor permitted. They seemed to sing the music for the music's sakealone, and were as heedless of the fitness of the accompanying words, as the composer of a modern opera is of his libretto. One middle agedman, with a powerful, mellow baritone, like the round, full notes of aFrench horn, played by a virtuoso, was the musical leader of the party. He never seemed to bother himself about air, notes or words, butimprovised all as he went along, and he sang as the spirit moved him. He would suddenly break out with--

 "Oh, he's gone up dah, nevah to come back agin, "

At this every darkey within hearing would roll out, in admirableconsonance with the pitch, air and time started by the leader--

 "O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!"

Then would ring out from the leader as from the throbbing lips of asilver trumpet, "Lord bress him soul; I done hope he is happy now!"

And the antiphonal two hundred would chant back

 "O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!"

And so on for hours. They never seemed to weary of singing, and wecertainly did not of listening to them. The absolute independence of theconventionalities of tune and sentiment, gave them freedom to wanderthrough a kaleideoscopic variety of harmonic effects, as spontaneous andchangeful as the song of a bird. 

I sat one evening, long after the shadows of night had fallen upon thehillside, with one of my chums--a Frank Berkstresser, of the NinthMaryland Infantry, who before enlisting was a mathematical tutor incollege at Hancock, Maryland. As we listened to the unwearying flow ofmelody from the camp of the laborers, I thought of and repeated to himLongfellow's fine lines:

THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT. 

And the voice of his devotionFilled my soul with strong emotion;For its tones by turns were gladSweetly solemn, wildly sad. 

 Paul and Silas, in their prison, Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen, And an earthquake's arm of might Broke their dungeon gates at night. 

 But, alas, what holy angel Brings the slave this glad evangel And what earthquake's arm of might. Breaks his prison gags at night. 

Said I: "Now, isn't that fine, Berkstresser?"

He was a Democrat, of fearfully pro-slavery ideas, and he replied, sententiously:

"O, the poetry's tolerable, but the sentiment's damnable. "

CHAPTER XVIII. 

SCHEMES AND PLANS TO ESCAPE--SCALING THE STOCKADE--ESTABLISHING THE DEADLINE--THE FIRST MAN KILLED. 

The official designation of our prison was "Camp Sumpter, " but this wasscarcely known outside of the Rebel documents, reports and orders. It was the same way with the prison five miles from Millen, to which wewere afterward transferred. The Rebels styled it officially "CampLawton, " but we called it always "Millen. "

Having our huts finished, the next solicitude was about escape, and thiswas the burden of our thoughts, day and night. We held conferences, atwhich every man was required to contribute all the geographical knowledgeof that section of Georgia that he might have left over from hisschoolboy days, and also that gained by persistent questioning of suchguards and other Rebels as he had come in contact with. When firstlanded in the prison we were as ignorant of our whereabouts as if we hadbeen dropped into the center of Africa. But one of the prisoners wasfound to have a fragment of a school atlas, in which was an outline mapof Georgia, that had Macon, Atlanta, Milledgeville, and Savannah laiddown upon it. As we knew we had come southward from Macon, we feltpretty certain we were in the southwestern corner of the State. Conversations with guards and others gave us the information that theChattahooche flowed some two score of miles to the westward, and that theFlint lay a little nearer on the east. Our map showed that these twounited and flowed together into Appalachicola Bay, where, some of usremembered, a newspaper item had said that we had gunboats stationed. The creek that ran through the stockade flowed to the east, and wereasoned that if we followed its course we would be led to the Flint, down which we could float on a log or raft to the Appalachicola. Thiswas the favorite scheme of the party with which I sided. Another partybelieved the most feasible plan was to go northward, and endeavor to gainthe mountains, and thence get into East Tennessee. 

But the main thing was to get away from the stockade; this, as the Frenchsay of all first steps, was what would cost. 

Our first attempt was made about a week after our arrival. We found twologs on the east side that were a couple of feet shorter than the rest, and it seemed as if they could be successfully scaled. About fifty of usresolved to make the attempt. We made a rope twenty-five or thirty feetlong, and strong enough to bear a man, out of strings and strips ofcloth. A stout stick was fastened to the end, so that it would catch onthe logs on either side of the gap. On a night dark enough to favor ourscheme, we gathered together, drew cuts to determine each boy's place inthe line, fell in single rank, according to this arrangement, and marchedto the place. The line was thrown skillfully, the stick caught fairly inthe notch, and the boy who had drawn number one climbed up amid asuspense so keen that I could hear my heart beating. It seemed agesbefore he reached the top, and that the noise he made must certainlyattract the attention of the guard. It did not. We saw our comrade's. Figure outlined against the sky as he slid, over the top, and then heardthe dull thump as he sprang to the ground on the other side. "Numbertwo, " was whispered by our leader, and he performed the feat assuccessfully as his predecessor. "Number, three, " and he followednoiselessly and quickly. Thus it went on, until, just as we heard numberfifteen drop, we also heard a Rebel voice say in a vicious undertone:

"Halt! halt, there, d--n you!"

This was enough. The game was up; we were discovered, and the remainingthirty-five of us left that locality with all the speed in our heels, getting away just in time to escape a volley which a squad of guards, posted in the lookouts, poured upon the spot where we had been standing. 

The next morning the fifteen who had got over the Stockade were broughtin, each chained to a sixty-four pound ball. Their story was that one ofthe N'Yaarkers, who had become cognizant of our scheme, had sought toobtain favor in the Rebel eyes by betraying us. The Rebels stationed asquad at the crossing place, and as each man dropped down from theStockade he was caught by the shoulder, the muzzle of a revolver thrustinto his face, and an order to surrender whispered into his ear. It wasexpected that the guards in the sentry-boxes would do such executionamong those of us still inside as would prove a warning to other would-beescapes. They were defeated in this benevolent intention by thereadiness with which we divined the meaning of that incautiously loudhalt, and our alacrity in leaving the unhealthy locality. 

The traitorous N'Yaarker was rewarded with a detail into the commissarydepartment, where he fed and fattened like a rat that had securedundisturbed homestead rights in the center of a cheese. When themiserable remnant of us were leaving Andersonville months afterward, Isaw him, sleek, rotund, and well-clothed, lounging leisurely in the doorof a tent. He regarded us a moment contemptuously, and then went onconversing with a fellow N'Yaarker, in the foul slang that none but suchas he were low enough to use. 

I have always imagined that the fellow returned home, at the close of thewar, and became a prominent member of Tweed's gang. 

We protested against the barbarity of compelling men to wear irons forexercising their natural right of attempting to escape, but no attentionwas paid to our protest. 

Another result of this abortive effort was the establishment of thenotorious "Dead Line. " A few days later a gang of negros came in anddrove a line of stakes down at a distance of twenty feet from thestockade. They nailed upon this a strip of stuff four inches wide, andthen an order was issued that if this was crossed, or even touched, theguards would fire upon the offender without warning. 

Our surveyor figured up this new contraction of our space, and came tothe conclusion that the Dead Line and the Swamp took up about threeacres, and we were left now only thirteen acres. This was not of muchconsequence then, however, as we still had plenty of room. 

The first man was killed the morning after the Dead-Line was put up. The victim was a German, wearing the white crescent of the SecondDivision of the Eleventh Corps, whom we had nicknamed "Sigel. " Hardshipand exposure had crazed him, and brought on a severe attack of St. Vitus's dance. As he went hobbling around with a vacuous grin upon hisface, he spied an old piece of cloth lying on the ground inside the DeadLine. He stooped down and reached under for it. At that instant theguard fired. The charge of ball-and-buck entered the poor old fellow'sshoulder and tore through his body. He fell dead, still clutching thedirty rag that had cost him his Life. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

CAPT. HENRI WIRZ--SOME DESCRIPTION OF A SMALL-MINDED PERSONAGE, WHOGAINED GREAT NOTORIETY--FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH HIS DISCIPLINARY METHOD. 

The emptying of the prisons at Danville and Richmond into Andersonvillewent on slowly during the month of March. They came in by train loads offrom five hundred to eight hundred, at intervals of two or three days. By the end of the month there were about five thousand in the stockade. There was a fair amount of space for this number, and as yet we sufferedno inconvenience from our crowding, though most persons would fancy thatthirteen acres of ground was a rather limited area for five thousand mento live, move and have their being a upon. Yet a few weeks later we wereto see seven times that many packed into that space. 

One morning a new Rebel officer came in to superintend calling the roll. He was an undersized, fidgety man, with an insignificant face, and amouth that protruded like a rabbit's. His bright little eyes, like thoseof a squirrel or a rat, assisted in giving his countenance a look ofkinship to the family of rodent animals--a genus which lives by stealthand cunning, subsisting on that which it can steal away from stronger andbraver creatures. He was dressed in a pair of gray trousers, with theother part of his body covered with a calico garment, like that whichsmall boys used to wear, called "waists. " This was fastened to thepantaloons by buttons, precisely as was the custom with the garments ofboys struggling with the orthography of words in two syllables. Upon hishead was perched a little gray cap. Sticking in his belt, and fastenedto his wrist by a strap two or three feet long, was one of thoseformidable looking, but harmless English revolvers, that have ten barrelsaround the edge of the cylinder, and fire a musket-bullet from thecenter. The wearer of this composite costume, and bearer of this amateurarsenal, stepped nervously about and sputtered volubly in very brokenEnglish. He said to Wry-Necked Smith:

"Py Gott, you don't vatch dem dam Yankees glose enough! Dey areschlippin' rount, and peatin' you efery dimes. "

This was Captain Henri Wirz, the new commandant of the interior of theprison. There has been a great deal of misapprehension of the characterof Wirz. He is usually regarded as a villain of large mental caliber, and with a genius for cruelty. He was nothing of the kind. He wassimply contemptible, from whatever point of view he was studied. Gnat-brained, cowardly, and feeble natured, he had not a quality thatcommanded respect from any one who knew him. His cruelty did not seemdesigned so much as the ebullitions of a peevish, snarling little temper, united to a mind incapable of conceiving the results of his acts, orunderstanding the pain he was Inflicting. 

I never heard anything of his profession or vocation before entering thearmy. I always believed, however, that he had been a cheap clerk in asmall dry-goods store, a third or fourth rate book-keeper, or somethingsimilar. Imagine, if you please, one such, who never had brains orself-command sufficient to control himself, placed in command ofthirty-five thousand men. Being a fool he could not help being aninfliction to them, even with the best of intentions, and Wirz was nottroubled with good intentions. 

I mention the probability of his having been a dry-goods clerk orbook-keeper, not with any disrespect to two honorable vocations, butbecause Wirz had had some training as an accountant, and this was whatgave him the place over us. Rebels, as a rule, are astonishinglyignorant of arithmetic and accounting, generally. They are good shots, fine horsemen, ready speakers and ardent politicians, but, like allnoncommercial people, they flounder hopelessly in what people of thissection would consider simple mathematical processes. One of ourconstant amusements was in befogging and "beating" those charged withcalling rolls and issuing rations. It was not at all difficult at timesto make a hundred men count as a hundred and ten, and so on. 

Wirz could count beyond one hundred, and this determined his selectionfor the place. His first move was a stupid change. We had been groupedin the natural way into hundreds and thousands. He re-arranged the menin "squads" of ninety, and three of these--two hundred and seventy men--into a "detachment. " The detachments were numbered in order from theNorth Gate, and the squads were numbered "one, two, three. " On the rollsthis was stated after the man's name. For instance, a chum of mine, andin the same squad with me, was Charles L. Soule, of the Third MichiganInfantry. His name appeared on the rolls:

"Chas. L. Soule, priv. Co. E, 8d Mich. Inf. , 1-2. "

That is, he belonged to the Second Squad of the First Detachment. 

Where Wirz got his, preposterous idea of organization from has alwaysbeen a mystery to me. It was awkward in every way--in drawing rations, counting, dividing into messes, etc. 

Wirz was not long in giving us a taste of his quality. The next morningafter his first appearance he came in when roll-call was sounded, andordered all the squads and detachments to form, and remain standing inranks until all were counted. Any soldier will say that there is no dutymore annoying and difficult than standing still in ranks for anyconsiderable length of time, especially when there is nothing to do or toengage the attention. It took Wirz between two and three hours to countthe whole camp, and by that time we of the first detachments were almostall out of ranks. Thereupon Wirz announced that no rations would beissued to the camp that day. The orders to stand in ranks were repeatedthe next morning, with a warning that a failure to obey would be punishedas that of the previous day had been. Though we were so hungry, that, to use the words of a Thirty-Fifth Pennsylvanian standing next to me--his"big intestines were eating his little ones up, " it was impossible tokeep the rank formation during the long hours. One man after anotherstraggled away, and again we lost our rations. That afternoon we becamedesperate. Plots were considered for a daring assault to force the gatesor scale the stockade. The men were crazy enough to attempt anythingrather than sit down and patiently starve. Many offered themselves asleaders in any attempt that it might be thought best to make. Thehopelessness of any such venture was apparent, even to famished men, and the propositions went no farther than inflammatory talk. 

The third morning the orders were again repeated. This time we succeededin remaining in ranks in such a manner as to satisfy Wirz, and we weregiven our rations for that day, but those of the other days werepermanently withheld. 

That afternoon Wirz ventured into camp alone. He was assailed with astorm of curses and execrations, and a shower of clubs. He pulled outhis revolver, as if to fire upon his assailants. A yell was raised totake his pistol away from him and a crowd rushed forward to do this. Without waiting to fire a shot, he turned and ran to the gate for dearlife. He did not come in again for a long while, and never afterwardwithout a retinue of guards. 

CHAPTER XX. 

PRIZE-FIGHT AMONG THE N'YAARKERS--A GREAT MANY FORMALITIES, AND LITTLEBLOOD SPILT--A FUTILE ATTEMPT TO RECOVER A WATCH--DEFEAT OF THE LAW ANDORDER PARTY. 

One of the train-loads from Richmond was almost wholly made up of our oldacquaintances--the N'Yaarkers. The number of these had swelled to fourhundred or five hundred--all leagued together in the fellowship of crime. 

We did not manifest any keen desire for intimate social relations withthem, and they did not seem to hunger for our society, so they movedacross the creek to the unoccupied South Side, and established their campthere, at a considerable distance from us. 

One afternoon a number of us went across to their camp, to witness afight according to the rules of the Prize Ring, which was to come offbetween two professional pugilists. These were a couple ofbounty-jumpers who had some little reputation in New York sportingcircles, under the names of the "Staleybridge Chicken" and the "HaarlemInfant. "

On the way from Richmond a cast-iron skillet, or spider, had been stolenby the crowd from the Rebels. It was a small affair, holding a halfgallon, and worth to-day about fifty cents. In Andersonville its worthwas literally above rubies. Two men belonging to different messes eachclaimed the ownership of the utensil, on the ground of being most activein securing it. Their claims were strenuously supported by theirrespective messes, at the heads of which were the aforesaid Infant andChicken. A great deal of strong talk, and several indecisive knock-downsresulted in an agreement to settle the matter by wager of battle betweenthe Infant and Chicken. 

When we arrived a twenty-four foot ring had been prepared by drawing adeep mark in the sand. In diagonally opposite corners of these theseconds were kneeling on one knee and supporting their principals on theother by their sides they had little vessels of water, and bundles ofrags to answer for sponges. Another corner was occupied by the umpire, a foul-mouthed, loud-tongued Tombs shyster, named Pete Bradley. A long-bodied, short-legged hoodlum, nick-named "Heenan, " armed with aclub, acted as ring keeper, and "belted" back, remorselessly, any of thespectators who crowded over the line. Did he see a foot obtrudingitself so much as an inch over the mark in the sand--and the pressurefrom the crowd behind was so great that it was difficult for the frontfellows to keep off the line--his heavy club and a blasting curse wouldfall upon the offender simultaneously. 

Every effort was made to have all things conform as nearly as possible tothe recognized practices of the "London Prize Ring. "

At Bradley's call of "Time!" the principals would rise from theirseconds' knees, advance briskly to the scratch across the center of thering, and spar away sharply for a little time, until one got in a blowthat sent the other to the ground, where he would lie until his secondpicked him up, carried him back, washed his face off, and gave him adrink. He then rested until the next call of time. 

This sort of performance went on for an hour or more, with the knockdownsand other casualities pretty evenly divided between the two. Then itbecame apparent that the Infant was getting more than he had storage roomfor. His interest in the skillet was evidently abating, the leering grinhe wore upon his face during the early part of the engagement haddisappeared long ago, as the successive "hot ones" which the Chicken hadsucceeded in planting upon his mouth, put it out of his power to "smileand smile, " "e'en though he might still be a villain. " He began comingup to the scratch as sluggishly as a hired man starting out for his day'swork, and finally he did not come up at all. A bunch of blood soakedrags was tossed into the air from his corner, and Bradley declared theChicken to be the victor, amid enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. 

We voted the thing rather tame. In the whole hour and a-half there wasnot so much savage fighting, not so much damage done, as a couple ofearnest, but unscientific men, who have no time to waste, will frequentlycrowd into an impromptu affair not exceeding five minutes in duration. 

Our next visit to the N'Yaarkers was on a different errand. The momentthey arrived in camp we began to be annoyed by their depredations. Blankets--the sole protection of men--would be snatched off as they sleptat night. Articles of clothing and cooking utensils would go the sameway, and occasionally a man would be robbed in open daylight. All these, it was believed, with good reason, were the work of the N'Yaarkers, andthe stolen things were conveyed to their camp. Occasionally depredatorswould be caught and beaten, but they would give a signal which wouldbring to their assistance the whole body of N'Yaarkers, and turn thetables on their assailants. 

We had in our squad a little watchmaker named Dan Martin, of the EighthNew York Infantry. Other boys let him take their watches to tinker up, so as to make a show of running, and be available for trading to theguards. 

One day Martin was at the creek, when a N'Yaarker asked him to let himlook at a watch. Martin incautiously did so, when the N'Yaarker snatchedit and sped away to the camp of his crowd. Martin ran back to us andtold his story. This was the last feather which was to break the camel'sback of our patience. Peter Bates, of the Third Michigan, the Sergeantof our squad, had considerable confidence in his muscular ability. He flamed up into mighty wrath, and swore a sulphurous oath that we wouldget that watch back, whereupon about two hundred of us avowed ourwillingness to help reclaim it. 

Each of us providing ourselves with a club, we started on our errand. The rest of the camp--about four thousand--gathered on the hillside towatch us. We thought they might have sent us some assistance, as it wasabout as much their fight as ours, but they did not, and we were tooproud to ask it. The crossing of the swamp was quite difficult. Onlyone could go over at a time, and he very slowly. The N'Yaarkersunderstood that trouble was pending, and they began mustering to receiveus. From the way they turned out it was evident that we should have comeover with three hundred instead of two hundred, but it was too late thento alter the program. As we came up a stalwart Irishman stepped out andasked us what we wanted. 

Bates replied: "We have come over to get a watch that one of your fellowstook from one of ours, and by --- we're going to have it. "

The Irishman's reply was equally explicit though not strictly logical inconstruction. Said he: "We havn't got your watch, and be ye can't haveit. "

This joined the issue just as fairly as if it had been done by all thedocumentary formula that passed between Turkey and Russia prior to thelate war. Bates and the Irishman then exchanged very derogatory opinionsof each other, and began striking with their clubs. The rest of us tookthis as our cue, and each, selecting as small a N'Yaarker as we couldreadily find, sailed in. 

There is a very expressive bit of slang coming into general use in theWest, which speaks of a man "biting off more than he can chew. "

That is what we had done. We had taken a contract that we should havedivided, and sub-let the bigger half. Two minutes after the engagementbecame general there was no doubt that we would have been much better offif we had staid on our own side of the creek. The watch was a very poorone, anyhow. We thought we would just say good day to our N'Yaarkfriends, and return home hastily. But they declined to be left soprecipitately. They wanted to stay with us awhile. It was lots of funfor them, and for the, four thousand yelling spectators on the oppositehill, who were greatly enjoying our discomfiture. There was hardlyenough of the amusement to go clear around, however, and it all fellshort just before it reached us. We earnestly wished that some of theboys would come over and help us let go of the N'Yaarkers, but they wereenjoying the thing too much to interfere. 

We were driven down the hill, pell-mell, with the N'Yaarkers pursuinghotly with yell and blow. At the swamp we tried to make a stand tosecure our passage across, but it was only partially successful. Veryfew got back without some severe hurts, and many received blows thatgreatly hastened their deaths. 

After this the N'Yaarkers became bolder in their robberies, and morearrogant in their demeanor than ever, and we had the poor revenge uponthose who would not assist us, of seeing a reign of terror inauguratedover the whole camp. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

DIMINISHING RATIONS--A DEADLY COLD RAIN--HOVERING OVER PITCH PINE FIRES--INCREASE ON MORTALITY--A THEORY OF HEALTH. 

The rations diminished perceptibly day by day. When we first entered weeach received something over a quart of tolerably good meal, a sweetpotato, a piece of meat about the size of one's two fingers, andoccasionally a spoonful of salt. First the salt disappeared. Then thesweet potato took unto itself wings and flew away, never to return. An attempt was ostensibly made to issue us cow-peas instead, and thefirst issue was only a quart to a detachment of two hundred and seventymen. This has two-thirds of a pint to each squad of ninety, and made buta few spoonfuls for each of the four messes in the squad. When it cameto dividing among the men, the beans had to be counted. Nobody receivedenough to pay for cooking, and we were at a loss what to do untilsomebody suggested that we play poker for them. This met generalacceptance, and after that, as long as beans were drawn, a large portionof the day was spent in absorbing games of "bluff" and "draw, " at a bean"ante, " and no "limit. "

After a number of hours' diligent playing, some lucky or skillful playerwould be in possession of all the beans in a mess, a squad, and sometimesa detachment, and have enough for a good meal. 

Next the meal began to diminish in quantity and deteriorate in quality. It became so exceedingly coarse that the common remark was that the nextstep would be to bring us the corn in the shock, and feed it to us likestock. Then meat followed suit with the rest. The rations decreased insize, and the number of days that we did not get any, kept constantlyincreasing in proportion to the days that we did, until eventually themeat bade us a final adieu, and joined the sweet potato in thatundiscovered country from whose bourne no ration ever returned. 

The fuel and building material in the stockade were speedily exhausted. The later comers had nothing whatever to build shelter with. 

But, after the Spring rains had fairly set in, it seemed that we had nottasted misery until then. About the middle of March the windows ofheaven opened, and it began a rain like that of the time of Noah. It wastropical in quantity and persistency, and arctic in temperature. Fordreary hours that lengthened into weary days and nights, and these againinto never-ending weeks, the driving, drenching flood poured down uponthe sodden earth, searching the very marrow of the five thousand haplessmen against whose chilled frames it beat with pitiless monotony, andsoaked the sand bank upon which we lay until it was like a sponge filledwith ice-water. It seems to me now that it must have been two or threeweeks that the sun was wholly hidden behind the dripping clouds, notshining out once in all that time. The intervals when it did not rainwere rare and short. An hour's respite would be followed by a day ofsteady, regular pelting of the great rain drops. 

I find that the report of the Smithsonian Institute gives the averageannual rainfall in the section around Andersonville, at fifty-six inches--nearly five feet--while that of foggy England is only thirty-two. Ourexperience would lead me to think that we got the five feet all at once. 

We first comers, who had huts, were measurably better off than the laterarrivals. It was much drier in our leaf-thatched tents, and we werespared much of the annoyance that comes from the steady dash of rainagainst the body for hours. 

The condition of those who had no tents was truly pitiable. 

They sat or lay on the hill-side the live-long day and night, and tookthe washing flow with such gloomy composure as they could muster. 

All soldiers will agree with me that there is no campaigning hardshipcomparable to a cold rain. One can brace up against the extremes of heatand cold, and mitigate their inclemency in various ways. But there is noescaping a long-continued, chilling rain. It seems to penetrate to theheart, and leach away the very vital force. 

The only relief attainable was found in huddling over little fires keptalive by small groups with their slender stocks of wood. As this woodwas all pitch-pine, that burned with a very sooty flame, the effect uponthe appearance of the hoverers was, startling. Face, neck and handsbecame covered with mixture of lampblack and turpentine, forming acoating as thick as heavy brown paper, and absolutely irremovable bywater alone. The hair also became of midnight blackness, and gummed upinto elflocks of fantastic shape and effect. Any one of us could havegone on the negro minstrel stage, without changing a hair, and put toblush the most elaborate make-up of the grotesque burnt-cork artists. 

No wood was issued to us. The only way of getting it was to stand aroundthe gate for hours until a guard off duty could be coaxed or hired toaccompany a small party to the woods, to bring back a load of such knotsand limbs as could be picked up. Our chief persuaders to the guards todo us this favor were rings, pencils, knives, combs, and such trifles aswe might have in our pockets, and, more especially, the brass buttons onour uniforms. Rebel soldiers, like Indians, negros and other imperfectlycivilized people, were passionately fond of bright and gaudy things. A handful of brass buttons would catch every one of them as swiftly andas surely as a piece of red flannel will a gudgeon. Our regular fee foran escort for three of us to the woods was six over-coat or dress-coatbuttons, or ten or twelve jacket buttons. All in the mess contributed tothis fund, and the fuel obtained was carefully guarded and husbanded. 

This manner of conducting the wood business is a fair sample of themanagement, or rather the lack of it, of every other detail of prisonadministration. All the hardships we suffered from lack of fuel andshelter could have been prevented without the slightest expense ortrouble to the Confederacy. Two hundred men allowed to go out on parole, and supplied with ages, would have brought in from the adjacent woods, in a week's time, enough material to make everybody comfortable tents, and to supply all the fuel needed. 

The mortality caused by the storm was, of course, very great. Theofficial report says the total number in the prison in March was fourthousand six hundred and three, of whom two hundred and eighty-threedied. 

Among the first to die was the one whom we expected to live longest. He was by much the largest man in prison, and was called, because ofthis, "BIG JOE. " He was a Sergeant in the Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry, and seemed the picture of health. One morning the news ran through theprison that "Big Joe is dead, " and a visit to his squad showed his stiff, lifeless form, occupying as much ground as Goliath's, after his encounterwith David. 

His early demise was an example of a general law, the workings of whichfew in the army failed to notice. It was always the large and strong whofirst succumbed to hardship. The stalwart, huge-limbed, toil-inured mensank down earliest on the march, yielded soonest to malarial influences, and fell first under the combined effects of home-sickness, exposure andthe privations of army life. The slender, withy boys, as supple and weakas cats, had apparently the nine lives of those animals. There were fewexceptions to this rule in the army--there were none in Andersonville. I can recall few or no instances where a large, strong, "hearty" manlived through a few months of imprisonment. The survivors wereinvariably youths, at the verge of manhood, --slender, quick, active, medium-statured fellows, of a cheerful temperament, in whom one wouldhave expected comparatively little powers of endurance. 

The theory which I constructed for my own private use in accounting forthis phenomenon I offer with proper diffidence to others who may be insearch of a hypothesis to explain facts that they have observed. It isthis:

a. The circulation of the blood maintains health, and consequently lifeby carrying away from the various parts of the body the particles ofworn-out and poisonous tissue, and replacing them with fresh, structure-building material. 

b. The man is healthiest in whom this process goes on most freely andcontinuously. 

c. Men of considerable muscular power are disposed to be sluggish; theexertion of great strength does not favor circulation. It rather retardsit, and disturbs its equilibrium by congesting the blood in quantities inthe sets of muscles called into action. 

d. In light, active men, on the other hand, the circulation goes onperfectly and evenly, because all the parts are put in motion, and keptso in such a manner as to promote the movement of the blood to everyextremity. They do not strain one set of muscles by long continuedeffort, as a strong man does, but call one into play after another. 

There is no compulsion on the reader to accept this speculation at anyvaluation whatever. There is not even any charge for it. I will laydown this simple axiom:

 No strong man, is a healthy man

from the athlete in the circus who lifts pieces of artillery and catchescannon balls, to the exhibition swell in a country gymnasium. If mytheory is not a sufficient explanation of this, there is nothing toprevent the reader from building up one to suit him better. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ALABAMIANS AND GEORGIANS--DEATH OF "POLL PARROTT"--A GOOD JOKE UPON THE GUARD--A BRUTAL RASCAL. 

There were two regiments guarding us--the Twenty-Sixth Alabama and theFifty-Fifth Georgia. Never were two regiments of the same army moredifferent. The Alabamians were the superiors of the Georgians in everyway that one set of men could be superior to another. They were manly, soldierly, and honorable, where the Georgians were treacherous andbrutal. We had nothing to complain of at the hands of the Alabamians;we suffered from the Georgians everything that mean-spirited crueltycould devise. The Georgians were always on the look-out for somethingthat they could torture into such apparent violation of orders, as wouldjustify them in shooting men down; the Alabamians never fired until theywere satisfied that a deliberate offense was intended. I can recall ofmy own seeing at least a dozen instances where men of the Fifty-FifthGeorgia Killed prisoners under the pretense that they were across theDead Line, when the victims were a yard or more from the Dead Line, andhad not the remotest idea of going any nearer. 

The only man I ever knew to be killed by one of the Twenty-Sixth Alabamawas named Hubbard, from Chicago, Ills. , and a member of the Thirty-EighthIllinois. He had lost one leg, and went hobbling about the camp oncrutches, chattering continually in a loud, discordant voice, saying allmanner of hateful and annoying things, wherever he saw an opportunity. This and his beak-like nose gained for him the name of "Poll Parrot. "His misfortune caused him to be tolerated where another man would havebeen suppressed. By-and-by he gave still greater cause for offense byhis obsequious attempts to curry favor with Captain Wirz, who took himoutside several times for purposes that were not well explained. Finally, some hours after one of Poll Parrot's visits outside, a Rebelofficer came in with a guard, and, proceeding with suspicious directnessto a tent which was the mouth of a large tunnel that a hundred men ormore had been quietly pushing forward, broke the tunnel in, and took theoccupants of the tent outside for punishment. The question that demandedimmediate solution then was:

"Who is the traitor who has informed the Rebels?"

Suspicion pointed very strongly to "Poll Parrot. " By the next morningthe evidence collected seemed to amount to a certainty, and a crowdcaught the Parrot with the intention of lynching him. He succeeded inbreaking away from them and ran under the Dead Line, near where I wassitting in, my tent. At first it looked as if he had done this to securethe protection of the guard. The latter--a Twenty-Sixth Alabamian--ordered him out. Poll Parrot rose up on his one leg, put his backagainst the Dead Line, faced the guard, and said in his harsh, cacklingvoice:

"No; I won't go out. If I've lost the confidence of my comrades I wantto die. "

Part of the crowd were taken back by this move, and felt disposed toaccept it as a demonstration of the Parrot's innocence. The rest thoughtit was a piece of bravado, because of his belief that the Rebels wouldnot injure, him after he had served them. They renewed their yells, theguard again ordered the Parrot out, but the latter, tearing open hisblouse, cackled out:

"No, I won't go; fire at me, guard. There's my heart shoot me rightthere. "

There was no help for it. The Rebel leveled his gun and fired. Thecharge struck the Parrot's lower jaw, and carried it completely away, leaving his tongue and the roof of his mouth exposed. As he was carriedback to die, he wagged his tongue rigorously, in attempting to speak, butit was of no use. 

The guard set his gun down and buried his face in his hands. It was theonly time that I saw a sentinel show anything but exultation at killing aYankee. 

A ludicrous contrast to this took place a few nights later. The rainshad ceased, the weather had become warmer, and our spirits rising withthis increase in the comfort of our surroundings, a number of us weresitting around "Nosey"--a boy with a superb tenor voice--who was singingpatriotic songs. We were coming in strong on the chorus, in a way thatspoke vastly more for our enthusiasm for the Union than our musicalknowledge. "Nosey" sang the "Star Spangled Banner, " "The Battle Cry ofFreedom, " "Brave Boys are They, " etc. , capitally, and we threw our wholelungs into the chorus. It was quite dark, and while our noise was goingon the guards changed, new men coming on duty. Suddenly, bang! went thegun of the guard in the box about fifty feet away from us. We knew itwas a Fifty-Fifth Georgian, and supposed that, irritated at our singing, he was trying to kill some of us for spite. At the sound of the gun wejumped up and scattered. As no one gave the usual agonized yell of aprisoner when shot, we supposed the ball had not taken effect. We couldhear the sentinel ramming down another cartridge, hear him "returnrammer, " and cock his rifle. Again the gun cracked, and again there wasno sound of anybody being hit. Again we could hear the sentry churningdown another cartridge. The drums began beating the long roll in thecamps, and officers could be heard turning the men out. The thing wasbecoming exciting, and one of us sang out to the guard:

"S-a-y! What the are you shooting at, any how?"

"I'm a shootin' at that ---- ---- Yank thar by the Dead Line, and by ---if you'uns don't take him in I'll blow the whole head offn him. "

"What Yank? Where's any Yank?"

"Why, thar--right thar--a-standin' agin the Ded Line. "

"Why, you Rebel fool, that's a chunk of wood. You can't get any furloughfor shooting that!"

At this there was a general roar from the rest of the camp, which theother guards took up, and as the Reserves came double-quicking up, andlearned the occasion of the alarm, they gave the rascal who had been soanxious to kill somebody a torrent of abuse for having disturbed them. 

A part of our crowd had been out after wood during the day, and secured apiece of a log as large as two of them could carry, and bringing it in, stood it up near the Dead Line. When the guard mounted to his post hewas sure he saw a temerarious Yankee in front of him, and hastened toslay him. 

It was an unusual good fortune that nobody was struck. It was very rarethat the guards fired into the prison without hitting at least oneperson. The Georgia Reserves, who formed our guards later in the season, were armed with an old gun called a Queen Anne musket, altered topercussion. It carried a bullet as big as a large marble, and three orfour buckshot. When fired into a group of men it was sure to bringseveral down. 

I was standing one day in the line at the gate, waiting for a chance togo out after wood. A Fifty-Fifth Georgian was the gate guard, and hedrew a line in the sand with his bayonet which we should not cross. The crowd behind pushed one man till he put his foot a few inches overthe line, to save himself from falling; the guard sank a bayonet throughthe foot as quick as a flash.