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. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A NEW LOT OF PRISONERS--THE BATTLE OF OOLUSTEE--MEN SACRIFICED TO AGENERAL'S INCOMPETENCY--A HOODLUM REINFORCEMENT--A QUEER CROWD--MISTREATMENT OF AN OFFICER OF A COLORED REGIMENT--KILLING THE SERGEANT OFA NEGRO SQUAD. 

So far only old prisoners--those taken at Gettysburg, Chicamauga and MineRun--had been brought in. The armies had been very quiet during theWinter, preparing for the death grapple in the Spring. There had beennothing done, save a few cavalry raids, such as our own, and Averill'sattempt to gain and break up the Rebel salt works at Wytheville, andSaltville. Consequently none but a few cavalry prisoners were added tothe number already in the hands of the Rebels. 

The first lot of new ones came in about the middle of March. There wereabout seven hundred of them, who had been captured at the battle ofOolustee, Fla. , on the 20th of February. About five hundred of them werewhite, and belonged to the Seventh Connecticut, the Seventh NewHampshire, Forty Seventh, Forty-Eighth and One Hundred and Fifteenth NewYork, and Sherman's regular battery. The rest were colored, and belongedto the Eighth United States, and Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts. The storythey told of the battle was one which had many shameful reiterationsduring the war. It was the story told whenever Banks, Sturgis, Butler, or one of a host of similar smaller failures were trusted with commands. It was a senseless waste of the lives of private soldiers, and theproperty of the United States by pretentious blunderers, who, in someinscrutable manner, had attained to responsible commands. In thisinstance, a bungling Brigadier named Seymore had marched his forcesacross the State of Florida, to do he hardly knew what, and in theneighborhood of an enemy of whose numbers, disposition, location, andintentions he was profoundly ignorant. The Rebels, under GeneralFinnegan, waited till he had strung his command along through swampsand cane brakes, scores of miles from his supports, and then fellunexpectedly upon his advance. The regiment was overpowered, and anotherregiment that hurried up to its support, suffered the same fate. Thebalance of the regiments were sent in in the same manner--each arrivingon the field just after its predecessor had been thoroughly whipped bythe concentrated force of the Rebels. The men fought gallantly, but thestupidity of a Commanding General is a thing that the gods themselvesstrive against in vain. We suffered a humiliating defeat, with a loss oftwo thousand men and a fine rifled battery, which was brought toAndersonville and placed in position to command the prison. 

The majority of the Seventh New Hampshire were an unwelcome addition toour numbers. They were N'Yaarkers--old time colleagues of those alreadyin with us--veteran bounty jumpers, that had been drawn to New Hampshireby the size of the bounty offered there, and had been assigned to fill upthe wasted ranks of the veteran Seventh regiment. They had tried todesert as soon as they received their bounty, but the Government clung tothem literally with hooks of steel, sending many of them to the regimentin irons. Thus foiled, they deserted to the Rebels during the retreatfrom the battlefield. They were quite an accession to the force of ourN'Yaarkers, and helped much to establish the hoodlum reign which wasshortly inaugurated over the whole prison. 

The Forty-Eighth New Yorkers who came in were a set of chaps so odd inevery way as to be a source of never-failing interest. The name of theirregiment was 'L'Enfants Perdu' (the Lost Children), which we anglicizedinto "The Lost Ducks. " It was believed that every nation in Europe wasrepresented in their ranks, and it used to be said jocularly, that no twoof them spoke the same language. As near as I could find out they wereall or nearly all South Europeans, Italians, Spaniards; Portuguese, Levantines, with a predominance of the French element. They wore alittle cap with an upturned brim, and a strap resting on the chin, a coatwith funny little tales about two inches long, and a brass chain acrossthe breast; and for pantaloons they had a sort of a petticoat reaching tothe knees, and sewed together down the middle. They were just assingular otherwise as in their looks, speech and uniform. On oneoccasion the whole mob of us went over in a mass to their squad to seethem cook and eat a large water snake, which two of them had succeeded incapturing in the swamps, and carried off to their mess, jabbering in highglee over their treasure trove. Any of us were ready to eat a piece ofdog, cat, horse or mule, if we could get it, but, it was generallyagreed, as Dawson, of my company expressed it, that "Nobody but one ofthem darned queer Lost Ducks would eat a varmint like a water snake. "

Major Albert Bogle, of the Eighth United States, (colored) had falleninto the hands of the rebels by reason of a severe wound in the leg, which left him helpless upon the field at Oolustee. The Rebels treatedhim with studied indignity. They utterly refused to recognize him as anofficer, or even as a man. Instead of being sent to Macon or Columbia, where the other officers were, he was sent to Andersonville, the same asan enlisted man. No care was given his wound, no surgeon would examineit or dress it. He was thrown into a stock car, without a bed orblanket, and hauled over the rough, jolting road to Andersonville. Once a Rebel officer rode up and fired several shots at him, as he layhelpless on the car floor. Fortunately the Rebel's marksmanship was asbad as his intentions, and none of the shots took effect. He was placedin a squad near me, and compelled to get up and hobble into line when therest were mustered for roll-call. No opportunity to insult, "the niggerofficer, " was neglected, and the N'Yaarkers vied with the Rebels inheaping abuse upon him. He was a fine, intelligent young man, and boreit all with dignified self-possession, until after a lapse of some weeksthe Rebels changed their policy and took him from the prison to send towhere the other officers were. 

The negro soldiers were also treated as badly as possible. The woundedwere turned into the Stockade without having their hurts attended to. One stalwart, soldierly Sergeant had received a bullet which had forcedits way under the scalp for some distance, and partially imbedded itselfin the skull, where it still remained. He suffered intense agony, andwould pass the whole night walking up and down the street in front of ourtent, moaning distressingly. The bullet could be felt plainly with thefingers, and we were sure that it would not be a minute's work, with asharp knife, to remove it and give the man relief. But we could notprevail upon the Rebel Surgeons even to see the man. Finallyinflammation set in and he died. 

The negros were made into a squad by themselves, and taken out every dayto work around the prison. A white Sergeant was placed over them, whowas the object of the contumely of the guards and other Rebels. One dayas he was standing near the gate, waiting his orders to come out, thegate guard, without any provocation whatever, dropped his gun until themuzzle rested against the Sergeant's stomach, and fired, killing himinstantly. 

The Sergeantcy was then offered to me, but as I had no accident policy, Iwas constrained to decline the honor. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

APRIL--LONGING TO GET OUT--THE DEATH RATE--THE PLAGUE OF LICE--THE SO-CALLED HOSPITAL. 

April brought sunny skies and balmy weather. Existence became much moretolerable. With freedom it would have been enjoyable, even had we beenno better fed, clothed and sheltered. But imprisonment had never seemedso hard to bear--even in the first few weeks--as now. It was easier tosubmit to confinement to a limited area, when cold and rain were aidinghunger to benumb the faculties and chill the energies than it was now, when Nature was rousing her slumbering forces to activity, and earth, and air and sky were filled with stimulus to man to imitate her example. The yearning to be up and doing something-to turn these golden hours togood account for self and country--pressed into heart and brain as thevivifying sap pressed into tree-duct and plant cell, awaking allvegetation to energetic life. 

To be compelled, at such a time, to lie around in vacuous idleness--to spend days that should be crowded full of action in a monotonous, objectless routine of hunting lice, gathering at roll-call, and drawingand cooking our scanty rations, was torturing. 

But to many of our number the aspirations for freedom were not, as withus, the desire for a wider, manlier field of action, so much as anintense longing to get where care and comforts would arrest their swiftprogress to the shadowy hereafter. The cruel rains had sapped away theirstamina, and they could not recover it with the meager and innutritiousdiet of coarse meal, and an occasional scrap of salt meat. Quickconsumption, bronchitis, pneumonia, low fever and diarrhea seized uponthese ready victims for their ravages, and bore them off at the rate ofnearly a score a day. 

It now became a part of, the day's regular routine to take a walk pastthe gates in the morning, inspect and count the dead, and see if anyfriends were among them. Clothes having by this time become a veryimportant consideration with the prisoners, it was the custom of the messin which a man died to remove from his person all garments that were ofany account, and so many bodies were carried out nearly naked. The handswere crossed upon the breast, the big toes tied together with a bit ofstring, and a slip of paper containing the man's name, rank, company andregiment was pinned on the breast of his shirt. 

The appearance of the dead was indescribably ghastly. The unclosed eyesshone with a stony glitter--

 An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high: But, O, more terrible than that, Is the curse in a dead man's eye. 

The lips and nostrils were distorted with pain and hunger, the sallow, dirt-grimed skin drawn tensely over the facial bones, and the wholeframed with the long, lank, matted hair and beard. Millions of liceswarmed over the wasted limbs and ridged ribs. These verminous pests hadbecome so numerous--owing to our lack of changes of clothing, and offacilities for boiling what we had--that the most a healthy man coulddo was to keep the number feeding upon his person down to a reasonablelimit--say a few tablespoonfuls. When a man became so sick as to beunable to help himself, the parasites speedily increased into millions, or, to speak more comprehensively, into pints and quarts. It did noteven seem exaggeration when some one declared that he had seen a deadman with more than a gallon of lice on him. 

There is no doubt that the irritation from the biting of these myriadsmaterially the days of those who died. 

Where a sick man had friends or comrades, of course part of their duty, in taking care of him, was to "louse" his clothing. One of the mosteffectual ways of doing this was to turn the garments wrong side out andhold the seams as close to the fire as possible, without burning thecloth. In a short time the lice would swell up and burst open, likepop-corn. This method was a favorite one for another reason than itsefficacy: it gave one a keener sense of revenge upon his rascally littletormentors than he could get in any other way. 

As the weather grew warmer and the number in the prison increased, thelice became more unendurable. They even filled the hot sand under ourfeet, and voracious troops would climb up on one like streams of antsswarming up a tree. We began to have a full comprehension of the thirdplague with which the Lord visited the Egyptians:

 And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice through all the land of Egypt. 

 And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. 

The total number of deaths in April, according to the official report, was five hundred and seventy-six, or an average of over nineteen a day. There was an average of five thousand prisoner's in the pen during allbut the last few days of the month, when the number was increased by thearrival of the captured garrison of Plymouth. This would make the lossover eleven per cent. , and so worse than decimation. At that rate weshould all have died in about eight months. We could have gone through asharp campaign lasting those thirty days and not lost so great aproportion of our forces. The British had about as many men as were inthe Stockade at the battle of New Orleans, yet their loss in killed fellmuch short of the deaths in the pen in April. 

A makeshift of a hospital was established in the northeastern corner ofthe Stockade. A portion of the ground was divided from the rest of theprison by a railing, a few tent flies were stretched, and in these thelong leaves of the pine were made into apologies for beds of about thegoodness of the straw on which a Northern farmer beds his stock. Thesick taken there were no better off than if they had staid with theircomrades. 

What they needed to bring about their recovery was clean clothing, nutritious food, shelter and freedom from the tortures of the lice. They obtained none of these. Save a few decoctions of roots, there wereno medicines; the sick were fed the same coarse corn meal that broughtabout the malignant dysentery from which they all suffered; they wore andslept in the same vermin-infested clothes, and there could be but oneresult: the official records show that seventy-six per cent. Of thosetaken to the hospitals died there. 

The establishment of the hospital was specially unfortunate for my littlesquad. The ground required for it compelled a general reduction of thespace we all occupied. We had to tear down our huts and move. By thistime the materials had become so dry that we could not rebuild with them, as the pine tufts fell to pieces. This reduced the tent and beddingmaterial of our party--now numbering five--to a cavalry overcoat and ablanket. We scooped a hole a foot deep in the sand and stuck ourtent-poles around it. By day we spread our blanket over the poles for atent. At night we lay down upon the overcoat and covered ourselves withthe blanket. It required considerable stretching to make it go overfive; the two out side fellows used to get very chilly, and squeeze thethree inside ones until they felt no thicker than a wafer. But it hadto do, and we took turns sleeping on the outside. In the course of afew weeks three of my chums died and left myself and B. B. Andrews (nowDr. Andrews, of Astoria, Ill. ) sole heirs to and occupants of, theovercoat and blanket. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE "PLYMOUTH PILGRIMS"--SAD TRANSITION FROM COMFORTABLE BARRACKS TOANDERSONVILLE--A CRAZED PENNSYLVANIAN--DEVELOPMENT OF THE BUTLERBUSINESS. 

We awoke one morning, in the last part of April, to find about twothousand freshly arrived prisoners lying asleep in the main streetsrunning from the gates. They were attired in stylish new uniforms, with fancy hats and shoes; the Sergeants and Corporals wore patentleather or silk chevrons, and each man had a large, well-filled knapsack, of the kind new recruits usually carried on coming first to the front, and which the older soldiers spoke of humorously as "bureaus. " They werethe snuggest, nattiest lot of soldiers we had ever seen, outside of the"paper collar" fellows forming the headquarter guard of some General in alarge City. As one of my companions surveyed them, he said:

"Hulloa! I'm blanked if the Johnnies haven't caught a regiment ofBrigadier Generals, somewhere. "

By-and-by the "fresh fish, " as all new arrivals were termed, began towake up, and then we learned that they belonged to a brigade consistingof the Eighty-Fifth New York, One Hundred and First and One Hundred andThird Pennsylvania, Sixteenth Connecticut, Twenty-Fourth New YorkBattery, two companies of Massachusetts heavy artillery, and a company ofthe Twelfth New York Cavalry. 

They had been garrisoning Plymouth, N. C. , an important seaport on theRoanoke River. Three small gunboats assisted them in their duty. TheRebels constructed a powerful iron clad called the "Albemarle, " at apoint further up the Roanoke, and on the afternoon of the 17th, with herand three brigades of infantry, made an attack upon the post. The "Albemarle" ran past the forts unharmed, sank one of the gunboats, and drove the others away. She then turned her attention to thegarrison, which she took in the rear, while the infantry attacked infront. Our men held out until the 20th, when they capitulated. They were allowed to retain their personal effects, of all kinds, and, as is the case with all men in garrison, these were considerable. 

The One Hundred and First and One Hundred and Third Pennsylvania andEighty-Fifth New York had just "veteranized, " and received their firstinstalment of veteran bounty. Had they not been attacked they would havesailed for home in a day or two, on their veteran furlough, and thisaccounted for their fine raiment. They were made up of boys from goodNew York and Pennsylvania families, and were, as a rule, intelligent andfairly educated. 

Their horror at the appearance of their place of incarceration was beyondexpression. At one moment they could not comprehend that we dirty andhaggard tatterdemalions had once been clean, self-respecting, well-fedsoldiers like themselves; at the next they would affirm that they knewthey could not stand it a month, in here we had then endured it from fourto nine months. They took it, in every way, the hardest of any prisonersthat came in, except some of the 'Hundred-Days' men, who were brought inin August, from the Valley of Virginia. They had served nearly all theirtime in various garrisons along the seacoast--from Fortress Monroe toBeaufort--where they had had comparatively little of the actual hardshipsof soldiering in the field. They had nearly always had comfortablequarters, an abundance of food, few hard marches or other severe service. Consequently they were not so well hardened for Andersonville as themajority who came in. In other respects they were better prepared, as they had an abundance of clothing, blankets and cooking utensils, and each man had some of his veteran bounty still in possession. 

It was painful to see how rapidly many of them sank under the miseries ofthe situation. They gave up the moment the gates were closed upon them, and began pining away. We older prisoners buoyed ourselves upcontinually with hopes of escape or exchange. We dug tunnels with thepersistence of beavers, and we watched every possible opportunity to getoutside the accursed walls of the pen. But we could not enlist theinterest of these discouraged ones in any of our schemes, or talk. They resigned themselves to Death, and waited despondingly till he came. 

A middle-aged One Hundred and First Pennsylvanian, who had taken up hisquarters near me, was an object of peculiar interest. Reasonablyintelligent and fairly read, I presume that he was a respectable mechanicbefore entering the Army. He was evidently a very domestic man, whosewhole happiness centered in his family. 

When he first came in he was thoroughly dazed by the greatness of hismisfortune. He would sit for hours with his face in his hands and hiselbows on his knees, gazing out upon the mass of men and huts, withvacant, lack-luster eyes. We could not interest him in anything. We tried to show him how to fix his blanket up to give him some shelter, but he went at the work in a disheartened way, and finally smiled feeblyand stopped. He had some letters from his family and a melaineotype of aplain-faced woman--his wife--and her children, and spent much time inlooking at them. At first he ate his rations when he drew them, butfinally began to reject, them. In a few days he was delirious withhunger and homesick ness. He would sit on the sand for hours imaginingthat he was at his family table, dispensing his frugal hospitalities tohis wife and children. 

Making a motion, as if presenting a dish, he would say:

"Janie, have another biscuit, do!"

Or, "Eddie, son, won't you have another piece of this nice steak?"

Or, "Maggie, have some more potatos, " and so on, through a whole family ofsix, or more. It was a relief to us when he died in about a month afterhe came in. 

As stated above, the Plymouth men brought in a large amount of money--variously estimated at from ten thousand to one hundred thousand dollars. The presence of this quantity of circulating medium immediately started alively commerce. All sorts of devices were resorted to by the otherprisoners to get a little of this wealth. Rude chuck-a-luck boards wereconstructed out of such material as was attainable, and put in operation. Dice and cards were brought out by those skilled in such matters. As those of us already in the Stockade occupied all the ground, there wasno disposition on the part of many to surrender a portion of their spacewithout exacting a pecuniary compensation. Messes having ground in agood location would frequently demand and get ten dollars for permissionfor two or three to quarter with them. Then there was a great demand forpoles to stretch blankets over to make tents; the Rebels, with theirusual stupid cruelty, would not supply these, nor allow the prisoners togo out and get them themselves. Many of the older prisoners had poles tospare which they were saying up for fuel. They sold these to thePlymouth folks at the rate of ten dollars for three--enough to put up ablanket. 

The most considerable trading was done through the gates. The Rebelguards were found quite as keen to barter as they had been in Richmond. Though the laws against their dealing in the money of the enemy werestill as stringent as ever, their thirst for greenbacks was not abatedone whit, and they were ready to sell anything they had for the covetedcurrency. The rate of exchange was seven or eight dollars in Confederatemoney for one dollar in greenbacks. Wood, tobacco, meat, flour, beans, molasses, onions and a villainous kind of whisky made from sorghum, werethe staple articles of trade. A whole race of little traffickers inthese articles sprang up, and finally Selden, the Rebel Quartermaster, established a sutler shop in the center of the North Side, which he putin charge of Ira Beverly, of the One Hundredth Ohio, and CharlieHuckleby, of the Eighth Tennessee. It was a fine illustration of thedevelopment of the commercial instinct in some men. No more unlikelyplace for making money could be imagined, yet starting in without a cent, they contrived to turn and twist and trade, until they had transferred totheir pockets a portion of the funds which were in some one else's. The Rebels, of course, got nine out of every ten dollars there was in theprison, but these middle men contrived to have a little of it stick totheir fingers. 

It was only the very few who were able to do this. Nine hundred andninety-nine out of every thousand were, like myself, either whollydestitute of money and unable to get it from anybody else, or they paidout what money they had to the middlemen, in exorbitant prices forarticles of food. 

The N'Yaarkers had still another method for getting food, money, blanketsand clothing. They formed little bands called "Raiders, " under theleadership of a chief villain. One of these bands would select as theirvictim a man who had good blankets, clothes, a watch, or greenbacks. Frequently he would be one of the little traders, with a sack of beans, a piece of meat, or something of that kind. Pouncing upon him at nightthey would snatch away his possessions, knock down his friends who cameto his assistance, and scurry away into the darkness. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

LONGINGS FOR GOD'S COUNTRY--CONSIDERATIONS OF THE METHODS OF GETTINGTHERE--EXCHANGE AND ESCAPE--DIGGING TUNNELS, AND THE DIFFICULTIESCONNECTED THEREWITH--PUNISHMENT OF A TRAITOR. 

To our minds the world now contained but two grand divisions, as widelydifferent from each other as happiness and misery. The first--thatportion over which our flag floated was usually spoken of as "God'sCountry;" the other--that under the baneful shadow of the banner ofrebellion--was designated by the most opprobrious epithets at thespeaker's command. 

To get from the latter to the former was to attain, at one bound, thehighest good. Better to be a doorkeeper in the House of the Lord, underthe Stars and Stripes, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness, underthe hateful Southern Cross. 

To take even the humblest and hardest of service in the field now wouldbe a delightsome change. We did not ask to go home--we would be contentwith anything, so long as it was in that blest place "within our lines. "Only let us get back once, and there would be no more grumbling atrations or guard duty--we would willingly endure all the hardships andprivations that soldier flesh is heir to. 

There were two ways of getting back--escape and exchange. Exchange waslike the ever receding mirage of the desert, that lures the thirstytraveler on over the parched sands, with illusions of refreshing springs, only to leave his bones at last to whiten by the side of those of hisunremembered predecessors. Every day there came something to build upthe hopes that exchange was near at hand--every day brought something toextinguish the hopes of the preceding one. We took these varying phasesaccording to our several temperaments. The sanguine built themselves upon the encouraging reports; the desponding sank down and died under thediscouraging ones. 

Escape was a perpetual allurement. To the actively inclined among us itseemed always possible, and daring, busy brains were indefatigable inconcocting schemes for it. The only bit of Rebel brain work that I eversaw for which I did not feel contempt was the perfect precautions takento prevent our escape. This is shown by the fact that, although, fromfirst to last, there were nearly fifty thousand prisoners inAndersonville, and three out of every five of these were ever on thealert to take French leave of their captors, only three hundred andtwenty-eight succeeded in getting so far away from Andersonville as toleave it to be presumed that they had reached our lines. 

The first, and almost superhuman difficulty was to get outside theStockade. It was simply impossible to scale it. The guards were tooclose together to allow an instant's hope to the most sanguine, that hecould even pass the Dead Line without being shot by some one of them. This same closeness prevented any hope of bribing them. To be successfulhalf those on post would have to be bribed, as every part of the Stockadewas clearly visible from every other part, and there was no night so darkas not to allow a plain view to a number of guards of the dark figureoutlined against the light colored logs of any Yankee who should essay toclamber towards the top of the palisades. 

The gates were so carefully guarded every time they were opened as topreclude hope of slipping out through theme. They were only unclosedtwice or thrice a day--once to admit, the men to call the roll, once tolet them out again, once to let the wagons come in with rations, andonce, perhaps, to admit, new prisoners. At all these times everyprecaution was taken to prevent any one getting out surreptitiously. 

This narrowed down the possibilities of passing the limits of the penalive, to tunneling. This was also surrounded by almost insuperabledifficulties. First, it required not less than fifty feet ofsubterranean excavation to get out, which was an enormous work with ourlimited means. Then the logs forming the Stockade were set in the groundto a depth of five feet, and the tunnel had to go down beneath them. They had an unpleasant habit of dropping down into the burrow under them. It added much to the discouragements of tunneling to think of one ofthese massive timbers dropping upon a fellow as he worked his mole-likeway under it, and either crushing him to death outright, or pinning himthere to die of suffocation or hunger. 

In one instance, in a tunnel near me, but in which I was not interested, the log slipped down after the digger had got out beyond it. He immediately began digging for the surface, for life, and wasfortunately able to break through before he suffocated. He got his headabove the ground, and then fainted. The guard outside saw him, pulledhim out of the hole, and when he recovered sensibility hurried him backinto the Stockade. 

In another tunnel, also near us, a broad-shouldered German, of the SecondMinnesota, went in to take his turn at digging. He was so much largerthan any of his predecessors that he stuck fast in a narrow part, anddespite all the efforts of himself and comrades, it was found impossibleto move him one way or the other. The comrades were at last reduced tothe humiliation of informing the Officer of the Guard of their tunnel andthe condition of their friend, and of asking assistance to release him, which was given. 

The great tunneling tool was the indispensable half-canteen. Theinventive genius of our people, stimulated by the war, produced nothingfor the comfort and effectiveness of the soldier equal in usefulness tothis humble and unrecognized utensil. It will be remembered that acanteen was composed of two pieces of tin struck up into the shape ofsaucers, and soldered together at the edges. After a soldier had been inthe field a little while, and thrown away or lost the curious andcomplicated kitchen furniture he started out with, he found that bymelting the halves of his canteen apart, he had a vessel much handier inevery way than any he had parted with. It could be used for anything--to make soup or coffee in, bake bread, brown coffee, stew vegetables, etc. , etc. A sufficient handle was made with a split stick. When thecooking was done, the handle was thrown away, and the half canteenslipped out of the road into the haversack. There seemed to be no end ofthe uses to which this ever-ready disk of blackened sheet iron could beturned. Several instances are on record where infantry regiments, withno other tools than this, covered themselves on the field with quiterespectable rifle pits. 

The starting point of a tunnel was always some tent close to the DeadLine, and sufficiently well closed to screen the operations from thesight of the guards near by. The party engaged in the work organized bygiving every man a number to secure the proper apportionment of thelabor. Number One began digging with his half canteen. After he hadworked until tired, he came out, and Number Two took his place, and soon. The tunnel was simply a round, rat-like burrow, a little larger thana man's body. The digger lay on his stomach, dug ahead of him, threw thedirt under him, and worked it back with his feet till the man behind him, also lying on his stomach, could catch it and work it back to the next. As the tunnel lengthened the number of men behind each other in this wayhad to be increased, so that in a tunnel seventy-five feet long therewould be from eight to ten men lying one behind the other. When the dirtwas pushed back to the mouth of the tunnel it was taken up in improvisedbags, made by tying up the bottoms of pantaloon legs, carried to theSwamp, and emptied. The work in the tunnel was very exhausting, and thedigger had to be relieved every half-hour. 

The greatest trouble was to carry the tunnel forward in a straight line. As nearly everybody dug most of the time with the right hand, there wasan almost irresistible tendency to make the course veer to the left. Thefirst tunnel I was connected with was a ludicrous illustration of this. About twenty of us had devoted our nights for over a week to theprolongation of a burrow. We had not yet reached the Stockade, whichastonished us, as measurement with a string showed that we had gonenearly twice the distance necessary for the purpose. The thing wasinexplicable, and we ceased operations to consider the matter. The nextday a man walking by a tent some little distance from the one in whichthe hole began, was badly startled by the ground giving way under hisfeet, and his sinking nearly to his waist in a hole. It was verysingular, but after wondering over the matter for some hours, there camea glimmer of suspicion that it might be, in some way, connected with themissing end of our tunnel. One of us started through on an exploringexpedition, and confirmed the suspicions by coming out where the man hadbroken through. Our tunnel was shaped like a horse shoe, and thebeginning and end were not fifteen feet apart. After that we practiseddigging with our left hand, and made certain compensations for thetendency to the sinister side. 

Another trouble connected with tunneling was the number of traitors andspies among us. There were many--principally among the N'Yaarker crowdwho were always zealous to betray a tunnel, in order to curry favor withthe Rebel officers. Then, again, the Rebels had numbers of their own menin the pen at night, as spies. It was hardly even necessary to dressthese in our uniform, because a great many of our own men came into theprison in Rebel clothes, having been compelled to trade garments withtheir captors. 

One day in May, quite an excitement was raised by the detection of one ofthese "tunnel traitors" in such a way as left no doubt of his guilt. At first everybody was in favor of killing him, and they actually startedto beat him to death. This was arrested by a proposition to "haveCaptain Jack tattoo him, " and the suggestion was immediately acted upon. 

"Captain Jack" was a sailor who had been with us in the Pembertonbuilding at Richmond. He was a very skilful tattoo artist, but, I amsure, could make the process nastier than any other that I ever sawattempt it. He chewed tobacco enormously. After pricking away for a fewminutes at the design on the arm or some portion of the body, he woulddeluge it with a flood of tobacco spit, which, he claimed, acted as akind of mordant. Piping this off with a filthy rag, he would study theeffect for an instant, and then go ahead with another series of prickingsand tobacco juice drenchings. 

The tunnel-traitor was taken to Captain Jack. That worthy decided tobrand him with a great "T, " the top part to extend across his foreheadand the stem to run down his nose. Captain Jack got his tattooing kitready, and the fellow was thrown upon the ground and held there. TheCaptain took his head between his legs, and began operations. After aninstant's work with the needles, he opened his mouth, and filled thewretch's face and eyes full of the disgusting saliva. The crowd roundabout yelled with delight at this new process. For an hour, that wasdoubtless an eternity to the rascal undergoing branding, Captain Jackcontinued his alternate pickings and drenchings. At the end of that timethe traitor's face was disfigured with a hideous mark that he would bearto his grave. We learned afterwards that he was not one of our men, buta Rebel spy. This added much to our satisfaction with the manner of histreatment. He disappeared shortly after the operation was finished, being, I suppose, taken outside. I hardly think Captain Jack would bepleased to meet him again. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE HOUNDS, AND THE DIFFICULTIES THEY PUT IN THE WAY OF ESCAPE--THE WHOLE SOUTH PATROLLED BY THEM. 

Those who succeeded, one way or another, in passing the Stockade limits, found still more difficulties lying between them and freedom than woulddiscourage ordinarily resolute men. The first was to get away from theimmediate vicinity of the prison. All around were Rebel patrols, picketsand guards, watching every avenue of egress. Several packs of houndsformed efficient coadjutors of these, and were more dreaded by possible"escapes, " than any other means at the command of our jailors. Guardsand patrols could be evaded, or circumvented, but the hounds could not. Nearly every man brought back from a futile attempt at escape told thesame story: he had been able to escape the human Rebels, but not theircanine colleagues. Three of our detachment--members of the TwentiethIndiana--had an experience of this kind that will serve to illustratehundreds of others. They had been taken outside to do some work upon thecook-house that was being built. A guard was sent with the three alittle distance into the woods to get a piece of timber. The boyssauntered, along carelessly with the guard, and managed to get prettynear him. As soon as they were fairly out of sight of the rest, thestrongest of them--Tom Williams--snatched the Rebel's gun away from him, and the other two springing upon him as swift as wild cats, throttledhim, so that he could not give the alarm. Still keeping a hand on histhroat, they led him off some distance, and tied him to a sapling withstrings made by tearing up one of their blouses. He was also securelygagged, and the boys, bidding him a hasty, but not specially tender, farewell, struck out, as they fondly hoped, for freedom. It was not longuntil they were missed, and the parties sent in search found and releasedthe guard, who gave all the information he possessed as to what hadbecome of his charges. All the packs of hounds, the squads of cavalry, and the foot patrols were sent out to scour the adjacent country. The Yankees kept in the swamps and creeks, and no trace of them was foundthat afternoon or evening. By this time they were ten or fifteen milesaway, and thought that they could safely leave the creeks for betterwalking on the solid ground. They had gone but a few miles, when thepack of hounds Captain Wirz was with took their trail, and came afterthem in full cry. The boys tried to ran, but, exhausted as they were, they could make no headway. Two of them were soon caught, but TomWilliams, who was so desperate that he preferred death to recapture, jumped into a mill-pond near by. When he came up, it was in a lot ofsaw logs and drift wood that hid him from being seen from the shore. The dogs stopped at the shore, and bayed after the disappearing prey. The Rebels with them, who had seen Tom spring in, came up and made apretty thorough search for him. As they did not think to probe aroundthe drift wood this was unsuccessful, and they came to the conclusionthat Tom had been drowned. Wirz marched the other two back and, for awonder, did not punish them, probably because he was so rejoiced at hissuccess in capturing them. He was beaming with delight when he returnedthem to our squad, and said, with a chuckle:

"Brisoners, I pring you pack two of dem tam Yankees wat got awayyesterday, unt I run de oder raskal into a mill-pont and trowntet him. "

What was our astonishment, about three weeks later, to see Tom, fat andhealthy, and dressed in a full suit of butternut, come stalking into thepen. He had nearly reached the mountains, when a pack of hounds, patrolling for deserters or negros, took his trail, where he had crossedthe road from one field to another, and speedily ran him down. He hadbeen put in a little country jail, and well fed till an opportunityoccurred to send him back. This patrolling for negros and deserters wasanother of the great obstacles to a successful passage through thecountry. The rebels had put, every able-bodied white man in the ranks, and were bending every energy to keep him there. The whole country wascarefully policed by Provost Marshals to bring out those who wereshirking military duty, or had deserted their colors, and to check anymovement by the negros. One could not go anywhere without a pass, asevery road was continually watched by men and hounds. It was the policyof our men, when escaping, to avoid roads as much as possible bytraveling through the woods and fields. 

From what I saw of the hounds, and what I could learn from others, I believe that each pack was made up of two bloodhounds and fromtwenty-five to fifty other dogs. The bloodhounds were debaseddescendants of the strong and fierce hounds imported from Cuba--many ofthem by the United States Government--for hunting Indians, during theSeminole war. The other dogs were the mongrels that are found in suchplentifulness about every Southern house--increasing, as a rule, innumbers as the inhabitant of the house is lower down and poorer. Theyare like wolves, sneaking and cowardly when alone, fierce and bold whenin packs. Each pack was managed by a well-armed man, who rode a mule;and carried, slung over his shoulders by a cord, a cow horn, scrapedvery thin, with which he controlled the band by signals. 

What always puzzled me much was why the hounds took only Yankee trails, in the vicinity of the prison. There was about the Stockade from sixthousand to ten thousand Rebels and negros, including guards, officers, servants, workmen, etc. These were, of course, continually in motion andmust have daily made trails leading in every direction. It was thecustom of the Rebels to send a pack of hounds around the prison everymorning, to examine if any Yankees had escaped during the night. It wasbelieved that they rarely failed to find a prisoner's tracks, and stillmore rarely ran off upon a Rebel's. If those outside the Stockade hadbeen confined to certain path and roads we could have understood this, but, as I understand, they were not. It was part of the interest of theday, for us, to watch the packs go yelping around the pen searching fortracks. We got information in this way whether any tunnel had beensuccessfully opened during the night. 

The use of hounds furnished us a crushing reply to the ever recurringRebel question:

"Why are you-uns puttin' niggers in the field to fight we-uns for?"

The questioner was always silenced by the return interrogatory:

"Is that as bad as running white men down with blood hounds?"

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

MAY--INFLUX OF NEW PRISONERS--DISPARITY IN NUMBERS BETWEEN THE EASTERNAND WESTERN ARMIES--TERRIBLE CROWDING--SLAUGHTER OF MEN AT THE CREEK. 

In May the long gathering storm of war burst with angry violence allalong the line held by the contending armies. The campaign began whichwas to terminate eleven months later in the obliteration of the SouthernConfederacy. May 1, Sigel moved up the Shenandoah Valley with thirtythousand men; May 3, Butler began his blundering movement againstPetersburg; May 3, the Army of the Potomac left Culpeper, and on the 5thbegan its deadly grapple with Lee, in the Wilderness; May 6, Shermanmoved from Chattanooga, and engaged Joe Johnston at Rocky Face Ridge andTunnel Hill. 

Each of these columns lost heavily in prisoners. It could not beotherwise; it was a consequence of the aggressive movements. An armyacting offensively usually suffers more from capture than one on thedefensive. Our armies were penetrating the enemy's country in closeproximity to a determined and vigilant foe. Every scout, every skirmishline, every picket, every foraging party ran the risk of falling into aRebel trap. This was in addition to the risk of capture in action. 

The bulk of the prisoners were taken from the Army of the Potomac. Forthis there were two reasons: First, that there were many more men in thatArmy than in any other; and second, that the entanglement in the densethickets and shrubbery of the Wilderness enabled both sides to capturegreat numbers of the other's men. Grant lost in prisoners from May 5 toMay 31, seven thousand four hundred and fifty; he probably capturedtwo-thirds of that number from the Johnnies. 

Wirz's headquarters were established in a large log house which had beenbuilt in the fort a little distant from the southeast corner of theprison. Every day--and sometimes twice or thrice a day--we would seegreat squads of prisoners marched up to these headquarters, where theywould be searched, their names entered upon the prison records, by clerks(detailed prisoners; few Rebels had the requisite clerical skill) andthen be marched into the prison. As they entered, the Rebel guards wouldstand to arms. The infantry would be in line of battle, the cavalrymounted, and the artillerymen standing by their guns, ready to open atthe instant with grape and canister. 

The disparity between the number coming in from the Army of the Potomacand Western armies was so great, that we Westerners began to take someadvantage of it. If we saw a squad of one hundred and fifty orthereabouts at the headquarters, we felt pretty certain they were fromSherman, and gathered to meet them, and learn the news from our friends. If there were from five hundred to two thousand we knew they were fromthe Army of the Potomac, and there were none of our comrades among them. There were three exceptions to this rule while we were in Andersonville. The first was in June, when the drunken and incompetent Sturgis (nowColonel of the Seventh United States Cavalry) shamefully sacrificed asuperb division at Guntown, Miss. The next was after Hood made hisdesperate attack on Sherman, on the 22d of July, and the third was whenStoneman was captured at Macon. At each of these times about twothousand prisoners were brought in. 

By the end of May there were eighteen thousand four hundred andfifty-four prisoners in the Stockade. Before the reader dismisses thisstatement from his mind let him reflect how great a number this is. It is more active, able-bodied young men than there are in any of ourleading Cities, save New York and Philadelphia. It is more than theaverage population of an Ohio County. It is four times as many troops asTaylor won the victory of Buena Vista with, and about twice as many asScott went into battle with at any time in his march to the City ofMexico. 

These eighteen thousand four hundred and fifty-four men were cooped up onless than thirteen acres of ground, making about fifteen hundred to theacre. No room could be given up for streets, or for the usualarrangements of a camp, and most kinds of exercise were wholly precluded. The men crowded together like pigs nesting in the woods on cold nights. The ground, despite all our efforts, became indescribably filthy, andthis condition grew rapidly worse as the season advanced and the sun'srays gained fervency. As it is impossible to describe this adequately, I must again ask the reader to assist with a few comparisons. He has anidea of how much filth is produced, on an ordinary City lot, in a week, by its occupation by a family say of six persons. Now let him imaginewhat would be the result if that lot, instead of having upon it sixpersons, with every appliance for keeping themselves clean, and forremoving and concealing filth, was the home of one hundred and eight men, with none of these appliances. 

That he may figure out these proportions for himself, I will repeat someof the elements of the problem: We will say that an average City lot isthirty feet front by one hundred deep. This is more front than most ofthem have, but we will be liberal. This gives us a surface of threethousand square feet. An acre contains forty-three thousand five hundredand sixty square feet. Upon thirteen of these acres, we had eighteenthousand four hundred and fifty-four men. After he has found the numberof square feet that each man had for sleeping apartment, dining room, kitchen, exercise grounds and outhouses, and decided that nobody couldlive for any length of time in such contracted space, I will tell himthat a few weeks later double that many men were crowded upon that spacethat over thirty-five thousand were packed upon those twelve and a-halfor thirteen acres. 

But I will not anticipate. With the warm weather the condition of theswamp in the center of the prison became simply horrible. We hear somuch now-a-days of blood poisoning from the effluvia of sinks and sewers, that reading it, I wonder how a man inside the Stockade, and into whosenostrils came a breath of that noisomeness, escaped being carried off bya malignant typhus. In the slimy ooze were billions of white maggots. They would crawl out by thousands on the warm sand, and, lying there afew minutes, sprout a wing or a pair of them. With these they wouldessay a clumsy flight, ending by dropping down upon some exposed portionof a man's body, and stinging him like a gad-fly. Still worse, theywould drop into what he was cooking, and the utmost care could notprevent a mess of food from being contaminated with them. 

All the water that we had to use was that in the creek which flowedthrough this seething mass of corruption, and received its sewerage. How pure the water was when it came into the Stockade was a question. We always believed that it received the drainage from the camps of theguards, a half-a-mile away. 

A road was made across the swamp, along the Dead Line at the west side, where the creek entered the pen. Those getting water would go to thisspot, and reach as far up the stream as possible, to get the water thatwas least filthy. As they could reach nearly to the Dead Line thisfurnished an excuse to such of the guards as were murderously inclined tofire upon them. I think I hazard nothing in saying that for weeks atleast one man a day was killed at this place. The murders becamemonotonous; there was a dreadful sameness to them. A gun would crack;looking up we would see, still smoking, the muzzle of the musket of oneof the guards on either side of the creek. At the same instant wouldrise a piercing shriek from the man struck, now floundering in the creekin his death agony. Then thousands of throats would yell out curses anddenunciations, and--

"O, give the Rebel ---- ---- ---- ---- a furlough!"

It was our belief that every guard who killed a Yankee was rewarded witha thirty-day furlough. Mr. Frederick Holliger, now of Toledo, formerly amember of the Seventy-Second Ohio, and captured at Guntown, tells me, ashis introduction to Andersonville life, that a few hours after his entryhe went to the brook to get a drink, reached out too far, and was firedupon by the guard, who missed him, but killed another man and wounded asecond. The other prisoners standing near then attacked him, and beathim nearly to death, for having drawn the fire of the guard. 

Nothing could be more inexcusable than these murders. Whatever defensethere might be for firing on men who touched the Dead Line in other partsof the prison, there could be none here. The men had no intention ofescaping; they had no designs upon the Stockade; they were not leadingany party to assail it. They were in every instance killed in the act ofreaching out with their cups to dip up a little water. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

SOME DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOLDIERLY DUTY AND MURDER--A PLOT TO ESCAPE--IT IS REVEALED AND FRUSTRATED. 

Let the reader understand that in any strictures I make I do not complainof the necessary hardships of war. I understood fully and accepted theconditions of a soldier's career. My going into the field uniformed andarmed implied an intention, at least, of killing, wounding, or capturing, some of the enemy. There was consequently no ground of complaint if Iwas, myself killed, wounded, or captured. If I did not want to takethese chances I ought to stay at home. In the same way, I recognized theright of our captors or guards to take proper precautions to prevent ourescape. I never questioned for an instant the right of a guard to fireupon those attempting to escape, and to kill them. Had I been postedover prisoners I should have had no compunction about shooting at thosetrying to get away, and consequently I could not blame the Rebels fordoing the same thing. It was a matter of soldierly duty. 

But not one of the men assassinated by the guards at Andersonville weretrying to escape, nor could they have got away if not arrested by abullet. In a majority of instances there was not even a transgression ofa prison rule, and when there was such a transgression it was a mereharmless inadvertence. The slaying of every man there was a foul crime. 

The most of this was done by very young boys; some of it by old men. The Twenty-Sixth Alabama and Fifty-Fifth Georgia, had guarded us sincethe opening of the prison, but now they were ordered to the field, andtheir places filled by the Georgia "Reserves, " an organization of boysunder, and men over the military age. As General Grant aptly-phrased it, "They had robbed the cradle and the grave, " in forming these regiments. The boys, who had grown up from children since the war began, could notcomprehend that a Yankee was a human being, or that it was any morewrongful to shoot one than to kill a mad dog. Their young imaginationshad been inflamed with stories of the total depravity of the Unionistsuntil they believed it was a meritorious thing to seize every opportunityto exterminate them. 

Early one morning I overheard a conversation between two of theseyouthful guards:

"Say, Bill, I heerd that you shot a Yank last night?"

"Now, you just bet I did. God! you jest ought to've heerd him holler. "

Evidently the juvenile murderer had no more conception that he hadcommitted crime than if he had killed a rattlesnake. 

Among those who came in about the last of the month were two thousand menfrom Butler's command, lost in the disastrous action of May 15, by whichButler was "bottled up" at Bermuda Hundreds. At that time the Rebelhatred for Butler verged on insanity, and they vented this upon these menwho were so luckless--in every sense--as to be in his command. Everypains was taken to mistreat them. Stripped of every article of clothing, equipment, and cooking utensils--everything, except a shirt and a pair ofpantaloons, they were turned bareheaded and barefooted into the prison, and the worst possible place in the pen hunted out to locate them upon. This was under the bank, at the edge of the Swamp and at the eastern sideof the prison, where the sinks were, and all filth from the upper part ofthe camp flowed down to them. The sand upon which they lay was dry andburning as that of a tropical desert; they were without the slightestshelter of any kind, the maggot flies swarmed over them, and the stenchwas frightful. If one of them survived the germ theory of disease is ahallucination. 

The increasing number of prisoners made it necessary for the Rebels toimprove their means of guarding and holding us in check. They threw up aline of rifle pits around the Stockade for the infantry guards. At intervals along this were piles of hand grenades, which could be usedwith fearful effect in case of an outbreak. A strong star fort wasthrown up at a little distance from the southwest corner. Eleven fieldpieces were mounted in this in such a way as to rake the Stockadediagonally. A smaller fort, mounting five guns, was built at thenorthwest corner, and at the northeast and southeast corners were smalllunettes, with a couple of howitzers each. Packed as we were we hadreason to dread a single round from any of these works, which could notfail to produce fearful havoc. 

Still a plot was concocted for a break, and it seemed to the sanguineportions of us that it must prove successful. First a secret society wasorganized, bound by the most stringent oaths that could be devised. The members of this were divided into companies of fifty men each; underofficers regularly elected. The secrecy was assumed in order to shut outRebel spies and the traitors from a knowledge of the contemplatedoutbreak. A man named Baker--belonging, I think, to some New Yorkregiment--was the grand organizer of the scheme. We were careful in eachof our companies to admit none to membership except such as longacquaintance gave us entire confidence in. 

The plan was to dig large tunnels to the Stockade at various places, andthen hollow out the ground at the foot of the timbers, so that a halfdozen or so could be pushed over with a little effort, and make a gap tenor twelve feet wide. All these were to be thrown down at a preconcertedsignal, the companies were to rush out and seize the eleven guns of theheadquarters fort. The Plymouth Brigade was then to man these and turnthem on the camp of the Reserves who, it was imagined, would drop theirarms and take to their heels after receiving a round or so of shell. We would gather what arms we could, and place them in the hands of themost active and determined. This would give us frown eight to tenthousand fairly armed, resolute men, with which we thought we could marchto Appalachicola Bay, or to Sherman. 

We worked energetically at our tunnels, which soon began to assume suchshape as to give assurance that they would answer our expectations inopening the prison walls. 

Then came the usual blight to all such enterprises: a spy or a traitorrevealed everything to Wirz. One day a guard came in, seized Baker andtook him out. What was done with him I know not; we never heard of himafter he passed the inner gate. 

Immediately afterward all the Sergeants of detachments were summonedoutside. There they met Wirz, who made a speech informing them that heknew all the details of the plot, and had made sufficient preparations todefeat it. The guard had been strongly reinforced, and disposed in sucha manner as to protect the guns from capture. The Stockade had beensecured to prevent its falling, even if undermined. He said, inaddition, that Sherman had been badly defeated by Johnston, and drivenback across the river, so that any hopes of co-operation by him would beill-founded. 

When the Sergeants returned, he caused the following notice to be postedon the gates:

 NOTICE. 

 Not wishing to shed the blood of hundreds, not connected with those who concocted a mad plan to force the Stockade, and make in this way their escape, I hereby warn the leaders and those who formed themselves into a band to carry out this, that I am in possession of all the facts, and have made my dispositions accordingly, so as to frustrate it. No choice would be left me but to open with grape and canister on the Stockade, and what effect this would have, in this densely crowded place, need not be told. 

 May 25, 1864. H. Wirz. 

The next day a line of tall poles, bearing white flags, were put up atsome little distance from the Dead Line, and a notice was read to us atroll call that if, except at roll call, any gathering exceeding onehundred was observed, closer the Stockade than these poles, the gunswould open with grape and canister without warning. 

The number of deaths in the Stockade in May was seven hundred and eight, about as many as had been killed in Sherman's army during the same time. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

JUNE--POSSIBILITIES OF A MURDEROUS CANNONADE--WHAT WAS PROPOSED TO BEDONE IN THAT EVENT--A FALSE ALARM--DETERIORATION OF THE RATIONS--FEARFUL INCREASE OF MORTALITY. 

After Wirz's threat of grape and canister upon the slightest provocation, we lived in daily apprehension of some pretext being found for openingthe guns upon us for a general massacre. Bitter experience had longsince taught us that the Rebels rarely threatened in vain. Wirz, especially, was much more likely to kill without warning, than to warnwithout killing. This was because of the essential weakness of hisnature. He knew no art of government, no method of discipline save "killthem!" His petty little mind's scope reached no further. He couldconceive of no other way of managing men than the punishment of everyoffense, or seeming offense, with death. Men who have any talent forgoverning find little occasion for the death penalty. The stronger theyare in themselves--the more fitted for controlling others--the less theirneed of enforcing their authority by harsh measures. 

There was a general expression of determination among the prisoners toanswer any cannonade with a desperate attempt to force the Stockade. It was agreed that anything was better than dying like rats in a pit orwild animals in a battue. It was believed that if anything would occurwhich would rouse half those in the pen to make a headlong effort inconcert, the palisade could be scaled, and the gates carried, and, thoughit would be at a fearful loss of life, the majority of those makingthe attempt would get out. If the Rebels would discharge grape andcanister, or throw a shell into the prison, it would lash everybody tosuch a pitch that they would see that the sole forlorn hope of safety layin wresting the arms away from our tormentors. The great element in ourfavor was the shortness of the distance between us and the cannon. We could hope to traverse this before the guns could be reloaded morethan once. 

Whether it would have been possible to succeed I am unable to say. It would have depended wholly upon the spirit and unanimity with whichthe effort was made. Had ten thousand rushed forward at once, each witha determination to do or die, I think it would have been successfulwithout a loss of a tenth of the number. But the insuperable trouble--inour disorganized state--was want of concert of action. I am quite sure, however, that the attempt would have been made had the guns opened. 

One day, while the agitation of this matter was feverish, I was cookingmy dinner--that is, boiling my pitiful little ration of unsalted meal, inmy fruit can, with the aid of a handful of splinters that I had been ableto pick up by a half day's diligent search. Suddenly the long rifle inthe headquarters fort rang out angrily. A fuse shell shrieked across theprison--close to the tops of the logs, and burst in the woods beyond. It was answered with a yell of defiance from ten thousand throats. 

I sprang up-my heart in my mouth. The long dreaded time had arrived; theRebels had opened the massacre in which they must exterminate us, or wethem. 

I looked across to the opposite bank, on which were standing twelvethousand men--erect, excited, defiant. I was sure that at the next shotthey would surge straight against the Stockade like a mighty humanbillow, and then a carnage would begin the like of which modern times hadnever seen. 

The excitement and suspense were terrible. We waited for what seemedages for the next gun. It was not fired. Old Winder was merely showingthe prisoners how he could rally the guards to oppose an outbreak. Though the gun had a shell in it, it was merely a signal, and the guardscame double-quicking up by regiments, going into position in the riflepits and the hand-grenade piles. 

As we realized what the whole affair meant, we relieved our surchargedfeelings with a few general yells of execration upon Rebels generally, and upon those around us particularly, and resumed our occupation ofcooking rations, killing lice, and discussing the prospects of exchangeand escape. 

The rations, like everything else about us, had steadily grown worse. A bakery was built outside of the Stockade in May and our meal was bakedthere into loaves about the size of brick. Each of us got a half of oneof these for a day's ration. This, and occasionally a small slice ofsalt pork, was call that I received. I wish the reader would preparehimself an object lesson as to how little life can be supported on forany length of time, by procuring a piece of corn bread the size of anordinary brickbat, and a thin slice of pork, and then imagine how hewould fare, with that as his sole daily ration, for long hungry weeks andmonths. Dio Lewis satisfied himself that he could sustain life on sixtycents, a week. I am sure that the food furnished us by the Rebels wouldnot, at present prices cost one-third that. They pretended to give usone-third of pound of bacon and one and one-fourth pounds of corn meal. A week's rations then would be two and one-third pounds of bacon--worthten cents, and eight and three-fourths pounds of meal, worth, say, tencents more. As a matter of fact, I do not presume that at any time wegot this full ration. It would surprise me to learn that we averagedtwo-thirds of it. 

The meal was ground very coarse and produced great irrition in thebowels. We used to have the most frightful cramps that men ever sufferedfrom. Those who were predisposed intestinal affections were speedilycarried off by incurable diarrhea and dysentery. Of the twelve thousandand twelve men who died, four thousand died of chronic diarrhea; eighthundred and seventeen died of acute diarrhea, and one thousand threehundred and eighty-four died of dysenteria, making total of six thousandtwo hundred and one victims to enteric disorders. 

Let the reader reflect a moment upon this number, till comprehends fullyhow many six thousand two hundred and men are, and how much force, energy, training, and rich possibilities for the good of the communityand country died with those six thousand two hundred and one young, active men. It may help his perception of the magnitude of this numberto remember that the total loss of the British, during the Crimean war, by death in all shapes, was four thousand five hundred and ninety-five, or one thousand seven hundred and six less than the deaths inAndersonville from dysenteric diseases alone. 

The loathsome maggot flies swarmed about the bakery, and dropped into thetrough where the dough was being mixed, so that it was rare to get aration of bread not contaminated with a few of them. 

It was not long until the bakery became inadequate to supply bread forall the prisoners. Then great iron kettles were set, and mush was issuedto a number of detachments, instead of bread. There was not so muchcleanliness and care in preparing this as a farmer shows in cooking foodfor stock. A deep wagon-bed would be shoveled full of the smoking paste, which was then hailed inside and issued out to the detachments, thelatter receiving it on blankets, pieces of shelter tents, or, lackingeven these, upon the bare sand. 

As still more prisoners came in, neither bread nor mush could befurnished them, and a part of the detachments received their rations inmeal. Earnest solicitation at length resulted in having occasionalscanty issues of wood to cook this with. My detachment was allowed tochoose which it would take--bread, mush or meal. It took the latter. 

Cooking the meal was the topic of daily interest. There were three waysof doing it: Bread, mush and "dumplings. " In the latter the meal wasdampened until it would hold together, and was rolled into little balls, the size of marbles, which were then boiled. The bread was the mostsatisfactory and nourishing; the mush the bulkiest--it made a biggershow, but did not stay with one so long. The dumplings held anintermediate position--the water in which they were boiled becoming asort of a broth that helped to stay the stomach. We received no salt, as a rule. No one knows the intense longing for this, when one goeswithout it for a while. When, after a privation of weeks we would get ateaspoonful of salt apiece, it seemed as if every muscle in our bodieswas invigorated. We traded buttons to the guards for red peppers, andmade our mush, or bread, or dumplings, hot with the fiery-pods, in hopesthat this would make up for the lack of salt, but it was a failure. One pinch of salt was worth all the pepper pods in the SouthernConfederacy. My little squad--now diminished by death from five tothree--cooked our rations together to economize wood and waste of meal, and quarreled among ourselves daily as to whether the joint stock shouldbe converted into bread, mush or dumplings. The decision depended uponthe state of the stomach. If very hungry, we made mush; if lessfamished, dumplings; if disposed to weigh matters, bread. 

This may seem a trifling matter, but it was far from it. We all rememberthe man who was very fond of white beans, but after having fifty or sixtymeals of them in succession, began to find a suspicion of monotony in theprovender. We had now six months of unvarying diet of corn meal andwater, and even so slight a change as a variation in the way of combiningthe two was an agreeable novelty. 

At the end of June there were twenty-six thousand three hundred andsixty-seven prisoners in the Stockade, and one thousand two hundred--justforty per day--had died during the month. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

DYING BY INCHES--SEITZ, THE SLOW, AND HIS DEATH--STIGGALL AND EMERSON--RAVAGES ON THE SCURVY. 

May and June made sad havoc in the already thin ranks of our battalion. Nearly a score died in my company--L--and the other companies sufferedproportionately. Among the first to die of my company comrades, was agenial little Corporal, "Billy" Phillips--who was a favorite with us all. Everything was done for him that kindness could suggest, but it was oflittle avail. Then "Bruno" Weeks--a young boy, the son of a preacher, who had run away from his home in Fulton County, Ohio, to join us, succumbed to hardship and privation. 

The next to go was good-natured, harmless Victor Seitz, a Detroit cigarmaker, a German, and one of the slowest of created mortals. How he evercame to go into the cavalry was beyond the wildest surmises of hiscomrades. Why his supernatural slowness and clumsiness did not result inhis being killed at least once a day, while in the service, was evenstill farther beyond the power of conjecture. No accident ever happenedin the company that Seitz did not have some share in. Did a horse fallon a slippery road, it was almost sure to be Seitz's, and that importedson of the Fatherland was equally sure to be caught under him. Didsomebody tumble over a bank of a dark night, it was Seitz that we soonheard making his way back, swearing in deep German gutterals, withfrequent allusion to 'tausend teuflin. ' Did a shanty blow down, we ranover and pulled Seitz out of the debris, when he would exclaim:

"Zo! dot vos pretty vunny now, ain't it?"

And as he surveyed the scene of his trouble with true German phlegm, hewould fish a brier-wood pipe from the recesses of his pockets, fill itwith tobacco, and go plodding off in a cloud of smoke in search of somefresh way to narrowly escape destruction. He did not know enough abouthorses to put a snaffle-bit in one's mouth, and yet he would draw thefriskiest, most mettlesome animal in the corral, upon whose back he wasscarcely more at home than he would be upon a slack rope. It was nouncommon thing to see a horse break out of ranks, and go past thebattalion like the wind, with poor Seitz clinging to his mane like thetraditional grim Death to a deceased African. We then knew that Seitzhad thoughtlessly sunk the keen spurs he would persist in wearing; deepinto the flanks of his high-mettled animal. 

These accidents became so much a matter-of-course that when anythingunusual occurred in the company our first impulse was to go and helpSeitz out. 

When the bugle sounded "boots and saddles, " the rest of us would pack up, mount, "count off by fours from the right, " and be ready to move outbefore the last notes of the call had fairly died away. Just then wewould notice an unsaddled horse still tied to the hitching place. It wasSeitz's, and that worthy would be seen approaching, pipe in mouth, andbridle in hand, with calm, equable steps, as if any time before theexpiration of his enlistment would be soon enough to accomplish thesaddling of his steed. A chorus of impatient and derisive remarks wouldgo up from his impatient comrades:

"For heaven's sake, Seitz, hurry up!"

"Seitz! you are like a cow's tail--always behind!"

"Seitz, you are slower than the second coming of the Savior!"

"Christmas is a railroad train alongside of you, Seitz!"

"If you ain't on that horse in half a second, Seitz, we'll go off andleave you, and the Johnnies will skin you alive!" etc. , etc. 

Not a ripple of emotion would roll over Seitz's placid features under thesharpest of these objurgations. At last, losing all patience, two orthree boys would dismount, run to Seitz's horse, pack, saddle and bridlehim, as if he were struck with a whirlwind. Then Seitz would mount, andwe would move 'off. 

For all this, we liked him. His good nature was boundless, and hisdisposition to oblige equal to the severest test. He did not lack agrain of his full share of the calm, steadfast courage of his race, andwould stay where he was put, though Erebus yawned and bade him fly. He was very useful, despite his unfitness for many of the duties of acavalryman. He was a good guard, and always ready to take charge ofprisoners, or be sentry around wagons or a forage pile-duties that mostof the boys cordially hated. 

But he came into the last trouble at Andersonville. He stood up prettywell under the hardships of Belle Isle, but lost his cheerfulness--hisunrepining calmness--after a few weeks in the Stockade. One day weremembered that none of us had seen him for several days, and we startedin search of him. We found him in a distant part of the camp, lying nearthe Dead Line. His long fair hair was matted together, his blue eyes hadthe flush of fever. Every part of his clothing was gray with the licethat were hastening his death with their torments. He uttered the firstcomplaint I ever heard him make, as I came up to him:

"My Gott, M ----, dis is worse dun a dog's det!"

In a few days we gave him all the funeral in our power; tied his big toestogether, folded his hands across his breast, pinned to his shirt a slipof paper, upon which was written:

 VICTOR E. SEITZ, Co. L, Sixteenth Illinois Cavalry. 

And laid his body at the South Gate, beside some scores of others thatwere awaiting the arrival of the six-mule wagon that hauled them to thePotter's Field, which was to be their last resting-place. 

John Emerson and John Stiggall, of my company, were two Norwegian boys, and fine specimens of their race--intelligent, faithful, and always readyfor duty. They had an affection for each other that reminded one of thestories told of the sworn attachment and the unfailing devotion that werecommon between two Gothic warrior youths. Coming into Andersonville somelittle time after the rest of us, they found all the desirable groundtaken up, and they established their quarters at the base of the hill, near the Swamp. There they dug a little hole to lie in, and put in alayer of pine leaves. Between them they had an overcoat and a blanket. At night they lay upon the coat and covered themselves with the blanket. By day the blanket served as a tent. The hardships and annoyances thatwe endured made everybody else cross and irritable. At times it seemedimpossible to say or listen to pleasant words, and nobody was everallowed to go any length of time spoiling for a fight. He could usuallybe accommodated upon the spot to any extent he desired, by simply makinghis wishes known. Even the best of chums would have sharp quarrels andbrisk fights, and this disposition increased as disease made greaterinroads upon them. I saw in one instance two brothers-both of whom diedthe next day of scurvy--and who were so helpless as to be unable to rise, pull themselves up on their knees by clenching the poles of their tents--in order to strike each other with clubs, and they kept striking untilthe bystanders interfered and took their weapons away from them. 

But Stiggall and Emerson never quarreled with each other. Theirtenderness and affection were remarkable to witness. They began to gothe way that so many were going; diarrhea and scurvy set in; they wastedaway till their muscles and tissues almost disappeared, leaving the skinlying fiat upon the bones; but their principal solicitude was for eachother, and each seemed actually jealous of any person else doing anythingfor the other. I met Emerson one day, with one leg drawn clear out ofshape, and rendered almost useless by the scurvy. He was very weak, butwas hobbling down towards the Creek with a bucket made from a boot leg. I said:

"Johnny, just give me your bucket. I'll fill it for you, and bring it upto your tent. "

"No; much obliged, M ----" he wheezed out; "my pardner wants a cooldrink, and I guess I'd better get it for him. "

Stiggall died in June. He was one of the first victims of scurvy, which, in the succeeding few weeks, carried off so many. All of us who had readsea-stories had read much of this disease and its horrors, but we hadlittle conception of the dreadful reality. It usually manifested itselffirst in the mouth. The breath became unbearably fetid; the gums swelleduntil they protruded, livid and disgusting, beyond the lips. The teethbecame so loose that they frequently fell out, and the sufferer wouldpick them up and set them back in their sockets. In attempting to bitethe hard corn bread furnished by the bakery the teeth often stuck fastand were pulled out. The gums had a fashion of breaking away, in largechunks, which would be swallowed or spit out. All the time one waseating his mouth would be filled with blood, fragments of gums andloosened teeth. 

Frightful, malignant ulcers appeared in other parts of the body; theever-present maggot flies laid eggs in these, and soon worms swarmedtherein. The sufferer looked and felt as if, though he yet lived andmoved, his body was anticipating the rotting it would undergo a littlelater in the grave. 

The last change was ushered in by the lower parts of the legs swelling. When this appeared, we considered the man doomed. We all had scurvy, more or less, but as long as it kept out of our legs we were hopeful. First, the ankle joints swelled, then the foot became useless. Theswelling increased until the knees became stiff, and the skin from thesedown was distended until it looked pale, colorless and transparent as atightly blown bladder. The leg was so much larger at the bottom than atthe thigh, that the sufferers used to make grim jokes about being modeledlike a churn, "with the biggest end down. " The man then became utterlyhelpless and usually died in a short time. 

The official report puts down the number of deaths from scurvy at threethousand five hundred and seventy-four, but Dr. Jones, the Rebel surgeon, reported to the Rebel Government his belief that nine-tenths of the greatmortality of the prison was due, either directly or indirectly, to thiscause. 

The only effort made by the Rebel doctors to check its ravages wasoccasionally to give a handful of sumach berries to some particularly badcase. 

When Stiggall died we thought Emerson would certainly follow him in a dayor two, but, to our surprise, he lingered along until August beforedying. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

"OLE BOO, " AND "OLE SOL, THE HAYMAKER"--A FETID, BURNING DESERT--NOISOMEWATER, AND THE EFFECTS OF DRINKING IT--STEALING SOFT SOAP. 

The gradually lengthening Summer days were insufferably long andwearisome. Each was hotter, longer and more tedious than itspredecessors. In my company was a none-too-bright fellow, named Dawson. During the chilly rains or the nipping, winds of our first days inprison, Dawson would, as he rose in, the morning, survey the forbiddingskies with lack-luster eyes and remark, oracularly:

"Well, Ole Boo gits us agin, to-day. "

He was so unvarying in this salutation to the morn that his designationof disagreeable weather as "Ole Boo" became generally adopted by us. When the hot weather came on, Dawson's remark, upon rising and seeingexcellent prospects for a scorcher, changed to: "Well, Ole Sol, theHaymaker, is going to git in his work on us agin to-day. "

As long as he lived and was able to talk, this was Dawson's invariableobservation at the break of day. 

He was quite right. The Ole Haymaker would do some famous work before hedescended in the West, sending his level rays through the wideinterstices between the somber pines. 

By nine o'clock in the morning his beams would begin to fairly singeeverything in the crowded pen. The hot sand would glow as one sees it inthe center of the unshaded highway some scorching noon in August. Thehigh walls of the prison prevented the circulation inside of any breezethat might be in motion, while the foul stench rising from the putridSwamp and the rotting ground seemed to reach the skies. 

One can readily comprehend the horrors of death on the burning sands ofa desert. But the desert sand is at least clean; there is nothing worseabout it than heat and intense dryness. It is not, as that was atAndersonville, poisoned with the excretions of thousands of sick anddying men, filled with disgusting vermin, and loading the air with thegerms of death. The difference is as that between a brick-kiln and asewer. Should the fates ever decide that I shall be flung out upon sandsto perish, I beg that the hottest place in the Sahara may be selected, rather than such a spot as the interior of the Andersonville Stockade. 

It may be said that we had an abundance of water, which made a decidedimprovement on a desert. Doubtless--had that water been pure. But everymouthful of it was a blood poison, and helped promote disease and death. Even before reaching the Stockade it was so polluted by the drainage ofthe Rebel camps as to be utterly unfit for human use. In our part of theprison we sank several wells--some as deep as forty feet--to procurewater. We had no other tools for this than our ever-faithful halfcanteens, and nothing wherewith to wall the wells. But a firm clay wasreached a few feet below the surface, which afforded tolerable strongsides for the lower part, ana furnished material to make adobe bricks forcurbs to keep out the sand of the upper part. The sides were continuallygiving away, however, and fellows were perpetually falling down theholes, to the great damage of their legs and arms. The water, which wasdrawn up in little cans, or boot leg buckets, by strings made of stripsof cloth, was much better than that of the creek, but was still far frompure, as it contained the seepage from the filthy ground. 

The intense heat led men to drink great quantities of water, and thissuperinduced malignant dropsical complaints, which, next to diarrhea, scurvy and gangrene, were the ailments most active in carrying men off. Those affected in this way swelled up frightfully from day to day. Theirclothes speedily became too small for them, and were ripped off, leavingthem entirely naked, and they suffered intensely until death at last cameto their relief. Among those of my squad who died in this way, was ayoung man named Baxter, of the Fifth Indiana Cavalry, taken atChicamauga. He was very fine looking--tall, slender, with regularfeatures and intensely black hair and eyes; he sang nicely, and wasgenerally liked. A more pitiable object than he, when last I saw him, just before his death, can not be imagined. His body had swollen untilit seemed marvelous that the human skin could bear so much distentionwithout disruption, All the old look of bright intelligence had been. Driven from his face by the distortion of his features. His swarthy hairand beard, grown long and ragged, had that peculiar repulsive look whichthe black hair of the sick is prone to assume. 

I attributed much of my freedom from the diseases to which otherssuccumbed to abstention from water drinking. Long before I entered thearmy, I had constructed a theory--on premises that were doubtless asinsufficient as those that boyish theories are usually based upon--thatdrinking water was a habit, and a pernicious one, which sapped away theenergy. I took some trouble to curb my appetite for water, and soonfound that I got along very comfortably without drinking anything beyondthat which was contained in my food. I followed this up after enteringthe army, drinking nothing at any time but a little coffee, and findingno need, even on the dustiest marches, for anything more. I do notpresume that in a year I drank a quart of cold water. Experience seemedto confirm my views, for I noticed that the first to sink under afatigue, or to yield to sickness, were those who were always on thelookout for drinking water, springing from their horses and strugglingaround every well or spring on the line of march for an opportunity tofill their canteens. 

I made liberal use of the Creek for bathing purposes, however, visitingit four or five times a day during the hot days, to wash myself allover. This did not cool one off much, for the shallow stream was nearlyas hot as the sand, but it seemed to do some good, and it helped passaway the tedious hours. The stream was nearly all the time filled asfull of bathers as they could stand, and the water could do littletowards cleansing so many. The occasional rain storms that swept acrossthe prison were welcomed, not only because they cooled the airtemporarily, but because they gave us a shower-bath. As they came up, nearly every one stripped naked and got out where he could enjoy the fullbenefit of the falling water. Fancy, if possible, the spectacle oftwenty-five thousand or thirty thousand men without a stitch of clothingupon them. The like has not been seen, I imagine, since the nakedfollowers of Boadicea gathered in force to do battle to the Romaninvaders. 

It was impossible to get really clean. Our bodies seemed covered with avarnish-like, gummy matter that defied removal by water alone. I imagined that it came from the rosin or turpentine, arising from thelittle pitch pine fires over which we hovered when cooking our rations. It would yield to nothing except strong soap-and soap, as I have beforestated--was nearly as scarce in the Southern Confederacy as salt. We inprison saw even less of it, or rather, none at all. The scarcity of it, and our desire for it, recalls a bit of personal experience. 

I had steadfastly refused all offers of positions outside the prison onparole, as, like the great majority of the prisoners, my hatred of theRebels grew more bitter, day by day; I felt as if I would rather die thanaccept the smallest favor at their hands, and I shared the commoncontempt for those who did. But, when the movement for a grand attack onthe Stockade--mentioned in a previous chapter--was apparently rapidlycoming to a head, I was offered a temporary detail outside to, assist inmaking up some rolls. I resolved to accept; first because I thought Imight get some information that would be of use in our enterprise; and, next, because I foresaw that the rush through the gaps in the Stockadewould be bloody business, and by going out in advance I would avoid thatmuch of the danger, and still be able to give effective assistance. 

I was taken up to Wirz's office. He was writing at a desk at one end ofa large room when the Sergeant brought me in. He turned around, told theSergeant to leave me, and ordered me to sit down upon a box at the otherend of the room. 

Turning his back and resuming his writing, in a few minutes he hadforgotten me. I sat quietly, taking in the details for a half-hour, andthen, having exhausted everything else in the room, I began wonderingwhat was in the box I was sitting upon. The lid was loose; I hitched itforward a little without attracting Wirz's attention, and slipped my lefthand down of a voyage of discovery. It seemed very likely that there wassomething there that a loyal Yankee deserved better than a Rebel. I found that it was a fine article of soft soap. A handful was scoopedup and speedily shoved into my left pantaloon pocket. Expecting everyinstant that Wirz would turn around and order me to come to the desk toshow my handwriting, hastily and furtively wiped my hand on the back ofmy shirt and watched Wirz with as innocent an expression as a school boyassumes when he has just flipped a chewed paper wad across the room. Wirz was still engrossed in his writing, and did not look around. I wasemboldened to reach down for another handful. This was also successfullytransferred, the hand wiped off on the back of the shirt, and the facewore its expression of infantile ingenuousness. Still Wirz did not lookup. I kept dipping up handful after handful, until I had gotten about aquart in the left hand pocket. After each handful I rubbed my hand offon the back of my shirt and waited an instant for a summons to the desk. Then the process was repeated with the other hand, and a quart of thesaponaceous mush was packed in the right hand pocket. 

Shortly after Wirz rose and ordered a guard to take me away and keep me, until he decided what to do with me. The day was intensely hot, and soonthe soap in my pockets and on the back of my shirt began burning likedouble strength Spanish fly blisters. There was nothing to do but grinand bear it. I set my teeth, squatted down under the shade of theparapet of the fort, and stood it silently and sullenly. For the firsttime in my life I thoroughly appreciated the story of the Spartan boy, who stole the fox and suffered the animal to tear his bowels out ratherthan give a sign which would lead to the exposure of his theft. 

Between four and five o'clock-after I had endured the thing for five orsix hours, a guard came with orders from Wirz that I should be returnedto the Stockade. Upon hastily removing my clothes, after coming inside, I found I had a blister on each thigh, and one down my back, that wouldhave delighted an old practitioner of the heroic school. But I also hada half gallon of excellent soft soap. My chums and I took a magnificentwash, and gave our clothes the same, and we still had soap enough left tobarter for some onions that we had long coveted, and which tasted assweet to us as manna to the Israelites. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

"POUR PASSER LE TEMPS"--A SET OF CHESSMEN PROCURED UNDER DIFFICULTIES--RELIGIOUS SERVICES--THE DEVOTED PRIEST--WAR SONG. 

The time moved with leaden feet. Do the best we could, there were verymany tiresome hours for which no occupation whatever could be found. All that was necessary to be done during the day--attending roll call, drawing and cooking rations, killing lice and washing--could be disposedof in an hour's time, and we were left with fifteen or sixteen wakinghours, for which there was absolutely no employment. Very many tried toescape both the heat and ennui by sleeping as much as possible throughthe day, but I noticed that those who did this soon died, andconsequently I did not do it. Card playing had sufficed to pass away thehours at first, but our cards soon wore out, and deprived us of thisresource. My chum, Andrews, and I constructed a set of chessmen with aninfinite deal of trouble. We found a soft, white root in the swamp whichanswered our purpose. A boy near us had a tolerably sharp pocket-knife, for the use of which a couple of hours each day, we gave a few spoonfulsof meal. The knife was the only one among a large number of prisoners, as the Rebel guards had an affection for that style of cutlery, which ledthem to search incoming prisoners, very closely. The fortunate owner ofthis derived quite a little income of meal by shrewdly loaning it to hisknifeless comrades. The shapes that we made for pieces and pawns werenecessarily very rude, but they were sufficiently distinct foridentification. We blackened one set with pitch pine soot, found a pieceof plank that would answer for a board and purchased it from itspossessor for part of a ration of meal, and so were fitted out with whatserved until our release to distract our attention from much of thesurrounding misery. 

Every one else procured such amusement as they could. Newcomers, whostill had money and cards, gambled as long as their means lasted. Thosewho had books read them until the leaves fell apart. Those who had paperand pen and ink tried to write descriptions and keep journals, but thiswas usually given up after being in prison a few weeks. I was fortunateenough to know a boy who had brought a copy of "Gray's Anatomy" intoprison with him. I was not specially interested in the subject, but itwas Hobson's choice; I could read anatomy or nothing, and so I tackled itwith such good will that before my friend became sick and was takenoutside, and his book with him, I had obtained a very fair knowledge ofthe rudiments of physiology. 

There was a little band of devoted Christian workers, among whom wereOrderly Sergeant Thomas J. Sheppard, Ninety-Seventh O. Y. L, now aleading Baptist minister in Eastern Ohio; Boston Corbett, who afterwardslew John Wilkes Booth, and Frank Smith, now at the head of the RailroadBethel work at Toledo. They were indefatigable in trying to evangelizethe prison. A few of them would take their station in some part of theStockade (a different one every time), and begin singing some oldfamiliar hymn like:

 "Come, Thou fount of every blessing, "

and in a few minutes they would have an attentive audience of as manythousand as could get within hearing. The singing would be followed byregular services, during which Sheppard, Smith, Corbett, and some otherswould make short, spirited, practical addresses, which no doubt did muchgood to all who heard them, though the grains of leaven were entirely toosmall to leaven such an immense measure of meal. They conducted severalfunerals, as nearly like the way it was done at home as possible. Theirministrations were not confined to mere lip service, but they laboredassiduously in caring for the sick, and made many a poor fellow's way tothe grave much smoother for him. 

This was about all the religious services that we were favored with. The Rebel preachers did not make that effort to save our misguided soulswhich one would have imagined they would having us where we could notchoose but hear they might have taken advantage of our situation to rakeus fore and aft with their theological artillery. They only attempted itin one instance. While in Richmond a preacher came into our room andannounced in an authoritative way that he would address us on religioussubjects. We uncovered respectfully, and gathered around him. He was aloud-tongued, brawling Boanerges, who addressed the Lord as if drilling abrigade. 

He spoke but a few moments before making apparent his belief that theworst of crimes was that of being a Yankee, and that a man must not onlybe saved through Christ's blood, but also serve in the Rebel army beforehe could attain to heaven. 

Of course we raised such a yell of derision that the sermon was broughtto an abrupt conclusion. 

The only minister who came into the Stockade was a Catholic priest, middle-aged, tall, slender, and unmistakably devout. He was unwearied inhis attention to the sick, and the whole day could be seen moving aroundthrough the prison, attending to those who needed spiritual consolation. It was interesting to see him administer the extreme unction to a dyingman. Placing a long purple scarf about his own neck and a small brazencrucifix in the hands of the dying one, he would kneel by the latter'sside and anoint him upon the eyes, ears, nostrils; lips, hands, feet andbreast, with sacred oil; from a little brass vessel, repeating the while, in an impressive voice, the solemn offices of the Church. 

His unwearying devotion gained the admiration of all, no matter howlittle inclined one might be to view priestliness generally with favor. He was evidently of such stuff as Christian heros have ever been made of, and would have faced stake and fagot, at the call of duty, withunquailing eye. His name was Father Hamilton, and he was stationed atMacon. The world should know more of a man whose services were socreditable to humanity and his Church:

The good father had the wisdom of the serpent, with the harmlessness ofthe dove. Though full of commiseration for the unhappy lot of theprisoners, nothing could betray him into the slightest expression ofopinion regarding the war or those who were the authors of all thismisery. In our impatience at our treatment, and hunger for news, weforgot his sacerdotal character, and importuned him for tidings of theexchange. His invariable reply was that he lived apart from these thingsand kept himself ignorant of them. 

"But, father, " said I one day, with an impatience that I could not whollyrepress, "you must certainly hear or read something of this, while youare outside among the Rebel officers. " Like many other people, Isupposed that the whole world was excited over that in which I felt adeep interest. 

"No, my son, " replied he, in his usual calm, measured tones. "I go notamong them, nor do I hear anything from them. When I leave the prison inthe evening, full of sorrow at what I have seen here, I find that thebest use I can make of my time is in studying the Word of God, andespecially the Psalms of David. "

We were not any longer good company for each other. We had heard overand over again all each other's stories and jokes, and each knew as muchabout the other's previous history as we chose to communicate. The storyof every individual's past life, relations, friends, regiment, andsoldier experience had been told again and again, until the repetitionwas wearisome. The cool nights following the hot days were favorable tolittle gossiping seances like the yarn-spinning watches of sailors onpleasant nights. Our squad, though its stock of stories was wornthreadbare, was fortunate enough to have a sweet singer in Israel "Nosey"Payne--of whose tunefulness we never tired. He had a large repertoire ofpatriotic songs, which he sang with feeling and correctness, and whichhelped much to make the calm Summer nights pass agreeably. Among thebest of these was "Brave Boys are They, " which I always thought was thefinest ballad, both in poetry and music, produced by the War. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

MAGGOTS, LICE AND RAIDERS--PRACTICES OF THESE HUMAN VERMIN--PLUNDERINGTHE SICK AND DYING--NIGHT ATTACKS, AND BATTLES BY DAY--HARD TIMES FOR THESMALL TRADERS. 

With each long, hot Summer hour the lice, the maggot-flies and theN'Yaarkers increased in numbers and venomous activity. They wereever-present annoyances and troubles; no time was free from them. The lice worried us by day and tormented us by night; the maggot-fliesfouled our food, and laid in sores and wounds larvae that speedilybecame masses of wriggling worms. The N'Yaarkers were human verminthat preyed upon and harried us unceasingly. 

They formed themselves into bands numbering from five to twenty-five, each led by a bold, unscrupulous, energetic scoundrel. We now calledthem "Raiders, " and the most prominent and best known of the bands werecalled by the names of their ruffian leaders, as "Mosby's Raiders, ""Curtis's Raiders, " "Delaney's Raiders, " "Sarsfield's Raiders, ""Collins's Raiders, " etc. 

As long as we old prisoners formed the bulk of those inside the Stockade, the Raiders had slender picking. They would occasionally snatch ablanket from the tent poles, or knock a boy down at the Creek and takehis silver watch from him; but this was all. Abundant opportunities forsecuring richer swag came to them with the advent of the PlymouthPilgrims. As had been before stated, these boys brought in with them alarge portion of their first instalment of veteran bounty--aggregating inamount, according to varying estimates, between twenty-five thousand andone hundred thousand dollars. The Pilgrims were likewise well clothed, had an abundance of blankets and camp equipage, and a plentiful supply ofpersonal trinkets, that could be readily traded off to the Rebels. Anaverage one of them--even if his money were all gone--was a bonanza toany band which could succeed in plundering him. His watch and chain, shoes, knife, ring, handkerchief, combs and similar trifles, would netseveral hundred dollars in Confederate money. The blockade, which cutoff the Rebel communication with the outer world, made these in greatdemand. Many of the prisoners that came in from the Army of the Potomacrepaid robbing equally well. As a rule those from that Army were notsearched so closely as those from the West, and not unfrequently theycame in with all their belongings untouched, where Sherman's men, arriving the same day, would be stripped nearly to the buff. 

The methods of the Raiders were various, ranging all the way from sneakthievery to highway robbery. All the arts learned in the prisons andpurlieus of New York were put into exercise. Decoys, "bunko-steerers" athome, would be on the look-out for promising subjects as each crowd offresh prisoners entered the gate, and by kindly offers to find them asleeping place, lure them to where they could be easily despoiled duringthe night. If the victim resisted there was always sufficient force athand to conquer him, and not seldom his life paid the penalty of hiscontumacy. I have known as many as three of these to be killed in anight, and their bodies--with throats cut, or skulls crushed in--be foundin the morning among the dead at the gates. 

All men having money or valuables were under continual espionage, andwhen found in places convenient for attack, a rush was made for them. They were knocked down and their persons rifled with such swift dexteritythat it was done before they realized what had happened. 

At first these depredations were only perpetrated at night. The quarrywas selected during the day, and arrangements made for a descent. Afterthe victim was asleep the band dashed down upon him, and sheared him ofhis goods with incredible swiftness. Those near would raise the cry of"Raiders!" and attack the robbers. If the latter had secured their bootythey retreated with all possible speed, and were soon lost in the crowd. If not, they would offer battle, and signal for assistance from the otherbands. Severe engagements of this kind were of continual occurrence, inwhich men were so badly beaten as to die from the effects. The weaponsused were fists, clubs, axes, tent-poles, etc. The Raiders wereplentifully provided with the usual weapons of their class--slung-shotsand brass-knuckles. Several of them had succeeded in smugglingbowie-knives into prison. 

They had the great advantage in these rows of being well acquainted witheach other, while, except the Plymouth Pilgrims, the rest of theprisoners were made up of small squads of men from each regiment in theservice, and total strangers to all outside of their own little band. The Raiders could concentrate, if necessary, four hundred or five hundredmen upon any point of attack, and each member of the gangs had become sofamiliarized with all the rest by long association in New York, andelsewhere, that he never dealt a blow amiss, while their opponents werenearly as likely to attack friends as enemies. 

By the middle of June the continual success of the Raiders emboldenedthem so that they no longer confined their depredations to the night, but made their forays in broad daylight, and there was hardly an hour inthe twenty-four that the cry of "Raiders! Raiders!" did, not go up fromsome part of the pen, and on looking in the direction of the cry, onewould see a surging commotion, men struggling, and clubs being pliedvigorously. This was even more common than the guards shooting men atthe Creek crossing. 

One day I saw "Dick Allen's Raiders, " eleven in number, attack a manwearing the uniform of Ellett's Marine Brigade. He was a recent comer, and alone, but he was brave. He had come into possession of a spade, bysome means or another, and he used this with delightful vigor and effect. Two or three times he struck one of his assailants so fairly on the headand with such good will that I congratulated myself that he had killedhim. Finally, Dick Allen managed to slip around behind him unnoticed, and striking him on the head with a slung-shot, knocked him down, whenthe whole crowd pounced upon him to kill him, but were driven off byothers rallying to his assistance. 

The proceeds of these forays enabled the Raiders to wax fat and lusty, while others were dying from starvation. They all had good tents, constructed of stolen blankets, and their headquarters was a large, roomytent, with a circular top, situated on the street leading to the SouthGate, and capable of accommodating from seventy-five to one hundred men. All the material for this had been wrested away from others. Whilehundreds were dying of scurvy and diarrhea, from the miserable, insufficient food, and lack of vegetables, these fellows had flour, freshmeat, onions, potatoes, green beans, and other things, the very looks ofwhich were a torture to hungry, scorbutic, dysenteric men. They were onthe best possible terms with the Rebels, whom they fawned upon andgroveled before, and were in return allowed many favors, in the way oftrading, going out upon detail, and making purchases. 

Among their special objects of attack were the small traders in theprison. We had quite a number of these whose genius for barter was sostrong that it took root and flourished even in that unpropitious soil, and during the time when new prisoners were constantly coming in withmoney, they managed to accumulate small sums--from ten dollars upward, bytrading between the guards and the prisoners. In the period immediatelyfollowing a prisoner's entrance he was likely to spend all his money andtrade off all his possessions for food, trusting to fortune to get himout of there when these were gone. Then was when he was profitable tothese go-betweens, who managed to make him pay handsomely for what hegot. The Raiders kept watch of these traders, and plundered themwhenever occasion served. It reminded one of the habits of the fishingeagle, which hovers around until some other bird catches a fish, and thentakes it away. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

A COMMUNITY WITHOUT GOVERNMENT--FORMATION OF THE REGULATORS--RAIDERSATTACK KEY BUT ARE BLUFFED OFF--ASSAULT OF THE REGULATORS ON THE RAIDERS--DESPERATE BATTLE--OVERTHROW OF THE RAIDERS. 

To fully appreciate the condition of affairs let it be remembered that wewere a community of twenty-five thousand boys and young men--none tooregardful of control at best--and now wholly destitute of government. The Rebels never made the slightest attempt to maintain order in theprison. Their whole energies were concentrated in preventing our escape. So long as we staid inside the Stockade, they cared as little what we didthere as for the performances of savages in the interior of Africa. I doubt if they would have interfered had one-half of us killed and eatenthe other half. They rather took a delight in such atrocities as came totheir notice. It was an ocular demonstration of the total depravity ofthe Yankees. 

Among ourselves there was no one in position to lay down law and enforceit. Being all enlisted men we were on a dead level as far as rank wasconcerned--the highest being only Sergeants, whose stripes carried noweight of authority. The time of our stay was--it was hoped--tootransient to make it worth while bothering about organizing any form ofgovernment. The great bulk of the boys were recent comers, who hopedthat in another week or so they would be out again. There were no fatsalaries to tempt any one to take upon himself the duty of ruling themasses, and all were left to their own devices, to do good or evil, according to their several bents, and as fear of consequences swayedthem. Each little squad of men was a law unto themselves, and made andenforced their own regulations on their own territory. The administrationof justice was reduced to its simplest terms. If a fellow did wrong hewas pounded--if there was anybody capable of doing it. If not he wentfree. 

The almost unvarying success of the Raiders in--their forays gave thegeneral impression that they were invincible--that is, that not enoughmen could be concentrated against them to whip them. Our ill-success inthe attack we made on them in April helped us to the same belief. If wecould not beat them then, we could not now, after we had been enfeebledby months of starvation and disease. It seemed to us that the PlymouthPilgrims, whose organization was yet very strong, should undertake thetask; but, as is usually the case in this world, where we think somebodyelse ought to undertake the performance of a disagreeable public duty, they did not see it in the light that we wished them to. Theyestablished guards around their squads, and helped beat off the Raiderswhen their own territory was invaded, but this was all they would do. The rest of us formed similar guards. In the southwest corner of theStockade--where I was--we formed ourselves into a company of fifty activeboys--mostly belonging to my own battalion and to other Illinoisregiments--of which I was elected Captain. My First Lieutenant was atall, taciturn, long-armed member of the One Hundred and EleventhIllinois, whom we called "Egypt, " as he came from that section of theState. He was wonderfully handy with his fists. I think he could knocka fellow down so that he would fall-harder, and lie longer than anyperson I ever saw. We made a tacit division of duties: I did thetalking, and "Egypt" went through the manual labor of knocking ouropponents down. In the numerous little encounters in which our companywas engaged, "Egypt" would stand by my side, silent, grim and patient, while I pursued the dialogue with the leader of the other crowd. As soonas he thought the conversation had reached the proper point, his longleft arm stretched out like a flash, and the other fellow dropped as ifhe had suddenly come in range of a mule that was feeling well. Thatunexpected left-hander never failed. It would have made Charles Reade'sheart leap for joy to see it. 

In spite of our company and our watchfulness, the Raiders beat us badlyon one occasion. Marion Friend, of Company I of our battalion, was oneof the small traders, and had accumulated forty dollars by his bartering. One evening at dusk Delaney's Raiders, about twenty-five strong, tookadvantage of the absence of most of us drawing rations, to make a rushfor Marion. They knocked him down, cut him across the wrist and neckwith a razor, and robbed him of his forty dollars. By the time we couldrally Delaney and his attendant scoundrels were safe from pursuit in themidst of their friends. 

This state of things had become unendurable. Sergeant Leroy L. Key, of Company M, our battalion, resolved to make an effort to crush theRaiders. He was a printer, from Bloomington, Illinois, tall, dark, intelligent and strong-willed, and one of the bravest men I ever knew. He was ably seconded by "Limber Jim, " of the Sixty-Seventh Illinois, whose lithe, sinewy form, and striking features reminded one of a youngSioux brave. He had all of Key's desperate courage, but not his brainsor his talent for leadership. Though fearfully reduced in numbers, ourbattalion had still about one hundred well men in it, and these formedthe nucleus for Key's band of "Regulators, " as they were styled. Amongthem were several who had no equals in physical strength and courage inany of the Raider chiefs. Our best man was Ned Carrigan, Corporal ofCompany I, from Chicago--who was so confessedly the best man in the wholeprison that he was never called upon to demonstrate it. He was abig-hearted, genial Irish boy, who was never known to get into troubleon his own account, but only used his fists when some of his comradeswere imposed upon. He had fought in the ring, and on one occasion hadkilled a man with a single blow of his fist, in a prize fight near St. Louis. We were all very proud of him, and it was as good as anentertainment to us to see the noisiest roughs subside into deferentialsilence as Ned would come among them, like some grand mastiff in themidst of a pack of yelping curs. Ned entered into the regulating schemeheartily. Other stalwart specimens of physical manhood in our battalionwere Sergeant Goody, Ned Johnson, Tom Larkin, and others, who, while notapproaching Carrigan's perfect manhood, were still more than a match forthe best of the Raiders. 

Key proceeded with the greatest secrecy in the organization of hisforces. He accepted none but Western men, and preferred Illinoisans, Iowans, Kansans, Indianians and Ohioans. The boys from those Statesseemed to naturally go together, and be moved by the same motives. He informed Wirz what he proposed doing, so that any unusual commotionwithin the prison might not be mistaken for an attempt upon the Stockade, and made the excuse for opening with the artillery. Wirz, who happenedto be in a complaisant humor, approved of the design, and allowed him theuse of the enclosure of the North Gate to confine his prisoners in. 

In spite of Key's efforts at secrecy, information as to his schemereached the Raiders. It was debated at their headquarters, and decidedthere that Key must be killed. Three men were selected to do this work. They called on Key, a dusk, on the evening of the 2d of July. Inresponse to their inquiries, he came out of the blanket-covered hole onthe hillside that he called his tent. They told him what they had heard, and asked if it was true. He said it was. One of them then drew aknife, and the other two, "billies" to attack him. But, anticipatingtrouble, Key had procured a revolver which one of the Pilgrims hadbrought in in his knapsack and drawing this he drove them off, butwithout firing a shot. 

The occurrence caused the greatest excitement. To us of the Regulatorsit showed that the Raiders had penetrated our designs, and were preparedfor them. To the great majority of the prisoners it was the firstintimation that such a thing was contemplated; the news spread from squadto squad with the greatest rapidity, and soon everybody was discussingthe chances of the movement. For awhile men ceased their interminablediscussion of escape and exchange--let those over worked words and themeshave a rare spell of repose--and debated whether the Raiders would whipthe regulators, or the Regulators conquer the Raiders. The reasons whichI have previously enumerated, induced a general disbelief in theprobability of our success. The Raiders were in good health well fed, used to operating together, and had the confidence begotten by a longseries of successes. The Regulators lacked in all these respects. 

Whether Key had originally fixed on the next day for making the attack, or whether this affair precipitated the crisis, I know not, but later inthe evening he sent us all order: to be on our guard all night, and readyfor action the next morning. 

There was very little sleep anywhere that night. The Rebels learnedthrough their spies that something unusual was going on inside, and astheir only interpretation of anything unusual there was a design upon theStockade, they strengthened the guards, took additional precautions inevery way, and spent the hours in anxious anticipation. 

We, fearing that the Raiders might attempt to frustrate the scheme by anattack in overpowering force on Key's squad, which would be accompaniedby the assassination of him and Limber Jim, held ourselves in readinessto offer any assistance that might be needed. 

The Raiders, though confident of success, were no less exercised. Theythrew out pickets to all the approaches to their headquarters, andprovided otherwise against surprise. They had smuggled in some canteensof a cheap, vile whisky made from sorghum--and they grew quite hilariousin their Big Tent over their potations. Two songs had long ago beenaccepted by us as peculiarly the Raiders' own--as some one in their crowdsang them nearly every evening, and we never heard them anywhere else. The first began:

 In Athol lived a man named Jerry Lanagan; He battered away till he hadn't a pound. His father he died, and he made him a man agin; Left him a farm of ten acres of ground. 

The other related the exploits of an Irish highwayman named Brennan, whose chief virtue was that

 What he rob-bed from the rich he gave unto the poor. 

And this was the villainous chorus in which they all joined, and sang insuch a way as suggested highway robbery, murder, mayhem and arson:

 Brennan on the moor! Brennan on the moor! Proud and undaunted stood John Brennan on the moor. 

They howled these two nearly the live-long night. They became eventuallyquite monotonous to us, who were waiting and watching. It would havebeen quite a relief if they had thrown in a new one every hour or so, by way of variety. 

Morning at last came. Our companies mustered on their grounds, and thenmarched to the space on the South Side where the rations were issued. Each man was armed with a small club, secured to his wrist by a string. 

The Rebels--with their chronic fear of an outbreak animating them--hadall the infantry in line of battle with loaded guns. The cannon in theworks were shotted, the fuses thrust into the touch-holes and the menstood with lanyards in hand ready to mow down everybody, at any instant. 

The sun rose rapidly through the clear sky, which soon glowed down on uslike a brazen oven. The whole camp gathered where it could best view theencounter. This was upon the North Side. As I have before explained thetwo sides sloped toward each other like those of a great trough. TheRaiders' headquarters stood upon the center of the southern slope, andconsequently those standing on the northern slope saw everything as ifupon the stage of a theater. 

While standing in ranks waiting the orders to move, one of my comradestouched me on the arm, and said:

"My God! just look over there!"

I turned from watching the Rebel artillerists, whose intentions gave memore uneasiness than anything else, and looked in the direction indicatedby the speaker. The sight was the strangest one my eyes everencountered. There were at least fifteen thousand perhaps twentythousand--men packed together on the bank, and every eye was turned onus. The slope was such that each man's face showed over the shoulders ofthe one in front of him, making acres on acres of faces. It was as ifthe whole broad hillside was paved or thatched with human countenances. 

When all was ready we moved down upon the Big Tent, in as good order aswe could preserve while passing through the narrow tortuous paths betweenthe tents. Key, Limber Jim, Ned Carigan, Goody, Tom Larkin, and NedJohnson led the advance with their companies. The prison was as silentas a graveyard. As we approached, the Raiders massed themselves in astrong, heavy line, with the center, against which our advance wasmoving, held by the most redoubtable of their leaders. How many therewere of them could not be told, as it was impossible to say where theirline ended and the mass of spectators began. They could not themselvestell, as the attitude of a large portion of the spectators would bedetermined by which way the battle went. 

Not a blow was struck until the lines came close together. Then theRaider center launched itself forward against ours, and grappled savagelywith the leading Regulators. For an instant--it seemed an hour--thestruggle was desperate. 

Strong, fierce men clenched and strove to throttle each other; greatmuscles strained almost to bursting, and blows with fist and club-dealtwith all the energy of mortal hate--fell like hail. One-perhapstwo-endless minutes the lines surged--throbbed--backward and forward astep or two, and then, as if by a concentration of mighty effort, ourmen flung the Raider line back from it--broken--shattered. The nextinstant our leaders were striding through the mass like raging lions. Carrigan, Limber Jim, Larkin, Johnson and Goody each smote down a swathof men before them, as they moved resistlessly forward. 

We light weights had been sent around on the flanks to separate thespectators from the combatants, strike the Raiders 'en revers, ' and, as far as possible, keep the crowd from reinforcing them. 

In five minutes after the first blow--was struck the overthrow of theRaiders was complete. Resistance ceased, and they sought safety inflight. 

As the result became apparent to the--watchers on the opposite hillside, they vented their pent-up excitement in a yell that made the very groundtremble, and we answered them with a shout that expressed not only ourexultation over our victory, but our great relief from the intense strainwe had long borne. 

We picked up a few prisoners on the battle field, and retired withoutmaking any special effort to get any more then, as we knew, that theycould not escape us. 

We were very tired, and very hungry. The time for drawing rations hadarrived. Wagons containing bread and mush had driven to the gates, butWirz would not allow these to be opened, lest in the excited condition ofthe men an attempt might be made to carry them. Key ordered operationsto cease, that Wirz might be re-assured and let the rations enter. It was in vain. Wirz was thoroughly scared. The wagons stood out in thehot sun until the mush fermented and soured, and had to be thrown away, while we event rationless to bed, and rose the next day with more thanusually empty stomachs to goad us on to our work. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

WHY THE REGULATORS WERE NOT ASSISTED BY THE ENTIRE CAMP--PECULIARITIES OFBOYS FROM DIFFERENT SECTIONS--HUNTING THE RAIDERS DOWN--EXPLOITS OF MYLEFT-HANDED LIEUTENANT--RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. 

I may not have made it wholly clear to the reader why we did not have theactive assistance of the whole prison in the struggle with the Raiders. There were many reasons for this. First, the great bulk of the prisonerswere new comers, having been, at the farthest, but three or four weeks inthe Stockade. They did not comprehend the situation of affairs as weolder prisoners did. They did not understand that all the outrages--orvery nearly all--were the work of--a relatively small crowd of graduatesfrom the metropolitan school of vice. The activity and audacity of theRaiders gave them the impression that at least half the able-bodied menin the Stockade were engaged in these depredations. This is always thecase. A half dozen burglars or other active criminals in a town willproduce the impression that a large portion of the population are lawbreakers. We never estimated that the raiding N'Yaarkers, with theirspies and other accomplices, exceeded five hundred, but it would havebeen difficult to convince a new prisoner that there were not thousandsof them. Secondly, the prisoners were made up of small squads from everyregiment at the front along the whole line from the Mississippi to theAtlantic. These were strangers to and distrustful of all out side theirown little circles. The Eastern men were especially so. ThePennsylvanians and New Yorkers each formed groups, and did not fraternizereadily with those outside their State lines. The New Jerseyans heldaloof from all the rest, while the Massachusetts soldiers had very littlein Common with anybody--even their fellow New Englanders. The Michiganmen were modified New Englanders. They had the same tricks of speech;they said "I be" for "I am, " and "haag" for "hog;" "Let me look at yourknife half a second, " or "Give me just a sup of that water, " where wesaid simply "Lend me your knife, " or "hand me a drink. " They were lessreserved than the true Yankees, more disposed to be social, and, with alltheir eccentricities, were as manly, honorable a set of fellows as it wasmy fortune to meet with in the army. I could ask no better comrades thanthe boys of the Third Michigan Infantry, who belonged to the same"Ninety" with me. The boys from Minnesota and Wisconsin were very muchlike those from Michigan. Those from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa andKansas all seemed cut off the same piece. To all intents and purposesthey might have come from the same County. They spoke the same dialect, read the same newspapers, had studied McGuffey's Readers, Mitchell'sGeography, and Ray's Arithmetics at school, admired the same great men, and held generally the same opinions on any given subject. It was neverdifficult to get them to act in unison--they did it spontaneously; whileit required an effort to bring about harmony of action with those fromother sections. Had the Western boys in prison been thoroughly advisedof the nature of our enterprise, we could, doubtless, have commandedtheir cordial assistance, but they were not, and there was no way inwhich it could be done readily, until after the decisive blow was struck. 

The work of arresting the leading Raiders went on actively all day on theFourth of July. They made occasional shows of fierce resistance, but theevents of the day before had destroyed their prestige, broken theirconfidence, and driven away from their support very many who followedtheir lead when they were considered all-powerful. They scattered fromtheir former haunts, and mingled with the crowds in other parts of theprison, but were recognized, and reported to Key, who sent parties toarrest them. Several times they managed to collect enough adherents todrive off the squads sent after them, but this only gave them a shortrespite, for the squad would return reinforced, and make short work ofthem. Besides, the prisoners generally were beginning to understand andapprove of the Regulators' movement, and were disposed to give all theassistance needed. 

Myself and "Egypt, " my taciturn Lieutenant of the sinewy left arm, weresent with our company to arrest Pete Donnelly, a notorious character, andleader of, a bad crowd. He was more "knocker" than Raider, however. He was an old Pemberton building acquaintance, and as we marched up towhere he was standing at the head of his gathering clan, he recognized meand said:

"Hello, Illinoy, " (the name by which I was generally known in prison)"what do you want here?"

I replied, "Pete, Key has sent me for you. I want you to go toheadquarters. "

"What the ---- does Key want with me?"

"I don't know, I'm sure; he only said to bring you. "

"But I haven't had anything to do with them other snoozers you have beena-having trouble with. "

"I don't know anything about that; you can talk to Key as to that. I only know that we are sent for you. "

"Well, you don't think you can take me unless I choose to go? You haintgot anybody in that crowd big enough to make it worth while for him towaste his time trying it. "

I replied diffidently that one never knew what--he could do till hetried; that while none of us were very big, we were as willing a lot oflittle fellows as he ever saw, and if it were all the same to him, wewould undertake to waste a little time getting him to headquarters. 

The conversation seemed unnecessarily long to "Egypt, " who stood by myside; about a half step in advance. Pete was becoming angrier and moredefiant every minute. His followers were crowding up to us, club inhand. Finally Pete thrust his fist in my face, and roared out:

"By ---, I ain't a going with ye, and ye can't take me, you ---- ---- ---- "

This was "Egypt's" cue. His long left arm uncoupled like the looseningof the weight of a pile-driver. It caught Mr. Donnelly under the chin, fairly lifted him from his feet, and dropped him on his back among hisfollowers. It seemed to me that the predominating expression in his faceas he went, over was that of profound wonder as to where that blow couldhave come from, and why he did not see it in time to dodge or ward itoff. 

As Pete dropped, the rest of us stepped forward with our clubs, to engagehis followers, while "Egypt" and one or two others tied his hands andotherwise secured him. But his henchmen made no effort to rescue him, and we carried him over to headquarters without molestation. 

The work of arresting increased in interest and excitement until itdeveloped into the furore of a hunt, with thousands eagerly engaged init. The Raiders' tents were torn down and pillaged. Blankets, tentpoles, and cooking utensils were carried off as spoils, and the groundwas dug over for secreted property. A large quantity of watches, chains, knives, rings, gold pens, etc. , etc. --the booty of many a raid--wasfound, and helped to give impetus to the hunt. Even the RebelQuartermaster, with the characteristic keen scent of the Rebels forspoils, smelled from the outside the opportunity for gaining plunder, and came in with a squad of Rebels equipped with spades, to dig forburied treasures. How successful he was I know not, as I took no partin any of the operations of that nature. 

It was claimed that several skeletons of victims of the Raiders werefound buried beneath the tent. I cannot speak with any certainty as tothis, though my impression is that at least one was found. 

By evening Key had perhaps one hundred and twenty-five of the most notedRaiders in his hands. Wirz had allowed him the use of the small stockadeforming the entrance to the North Gate to confine them in. 

The next thing was the judgment and punishment of the arrested ones. For this purpose Key organized a court martial composed of thirteenSergeants, chosen from the latest arrivals of prisoners, that they mighthave no prejudice against the Raiders. I believe that a man named DickMcCullough, belonging to the Third Missouri Cavalry, was the President ofthe Court. The trial was carefully conducted, with all the formality ofa legal procedure that the Court and those managing the matter couldremember as applicable to the crimes with which the accused were charged. Each of these confronted by the witnesses who testified against him, andallowed to cross-examine them to any extent he desired. The defense was managed by one of their crowd, the foul-tongued Tombsshyster, Pete Bradley, of whom I have before spoken. Such was the fearof the vengeance of the Raiders and their friends that many who had beenbadly abused dared not testify against them, dreading midnightassassination if they did. Others would not go before the Court exceptat night. But for all this there was no lack of evidence; there werethousands who had been robbed and maltreated, or who had seen theseoutrages committed on others, and the boldness of the leaders in theirbight of power rendered their identification a matter of no difficultywhatever. 

The trial lasted several days, and concluded with sentencing quite alarge number to run the gauntlet, a smaller number to wear balls andchains, and the following six to be hanged: John Sarsfield, One Hundred and Forty-Fourth New York. William Collins, alias "Mosby, " Company D, Eighty-Eighth Pennsylvania, Charles Curtis, Company A, Fifth Rhode Island Artillery. Patrick Delaney, Company E, Eighty-Third Pennsylvania. A. Muir, United States Navy. Terence Sullivan, Seventy-Second New York. 

These names and regiments are of little consequence, however, as Ibelieve all the rascals were professional bounty-jumpers, and did notbelong to any regiment longer than they could find an opportunity todesert and join another. 

Those sentenced to ball-and-chain were brought in immediately, and hadthe irons fitted to them that had been worn by some of our men as apunishment for trying to escape. 

It was not yet determined how punishment should be meted out to theremainder, but circumstances themselves decided the matter. Wirz becametired of guarding so large a number as Key had arrested, and he informedKey that he should turn them back into the Stockade immediately. Keybegged for little farther time to consider the disposition of the cases, but Wirz refused it, and ordered the Officer of the Guard to return allarrested, save those sentenced to death, to the Stockade. In themeantime the news had spread through the prison that the Raiders were tobe sent in again unpunished, and an angry mob, numbering some thousands, and mostly composed of men who had suffered injuries at the hands of themarauders, gathered at the South Gate, clubs in hand, to get suchsatisfaction as they could out of the rascals. They formed in two long, parallel lines, facing inward, and grimly awaited the incoming of theobjects of their vengeance. 

The Officer of the Guard opened the wicket in the gate, and began forcingthe Raiders through it--one at a time--at the point of the bayonet, andeach as he entered was told what he already realized well--that he mustrun for his life. They did this with all the energy that they possessed, and as they ran blows rained on their heads, arms and backs. If theycould succeed in breaking through the line at any place they weregenerally let go without any further punishment. Three of the numberwere beaten to death. I saw one of these killed. I had no liking forthe gauntlet performance, and refused to have anything to do with it, as did most, if not all, of my crowd. While the gauntlet was inoperation, I was standing by my tent at the head of a little street, about two hundred feet from the line, watching what was being done. A sailor was let in. He had a large bowie knife concealed about hisperson somewhere, which he drew, and struck savagely with at histormentors on either side. They fell back from before him, but closed inbehind and pounded him terribly. He broke through the line, and ran upthe street towards me. About midway of the distance stood a boy who hadhelped carry a dead man out during the day, and while out had secured alarge pine rail which he had brought in with him. He was holding thisstraight up in the air, as if at a "present arms. " He seemed to haveknown from the first that the Raider would run that way. Just as he camesquarely under it, the boy dropped the rail like the bar of a toll gate. It struck the Raider across the head, felled him as if by a shot, and hispursuers then beat him to death. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE EXECUTION--BUILDING THE SCAFFOLD--DOUBTS OF THE CAMP-CAPTAIN WIRZTHINKS IT IS PROBABLY A RUSE TO FORCE THE STOCKADE--HIS PREPARATIONSAGAINST SUCH AN ATTEMPT--ENTRANCE OF THE DOOMED ONES--THEY REALIZE THEIRFATE--ONE MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE--HIS RECAPTURE--INTENSEEXCITEMENT--WIRZ ORDERS THE GUNS TO OPEN--FORTUNATELY THEY DO NOT-THE SIXARE HANGED--ONE BREAKS HIS ROPE--SCENE WHEN THE RAIDERS ARE CUT DOWN. 

It began to be pretty generally understood through the prison that sixmen had been sentenced to be hanged, though no authoritative announcementof the fact had been made. There was much canvassing as to where theyshould be executed, and whether an attempt to hang them inside of theStockade would not rouse their friends to make a desperate effort torescue them, which would precipitate a general engagement of even largerproportions than that of the 3d. Despite the result of the affairs ofthat and the succeeding days, the camp was not yet convinced that theRaiders were really conquered, and the Regulators themselves were notthoroughly at ease on that score. Some five thousand or six thousand newprisoners had come in since the first of the month, and it was claimedthat the Raiders had received large reinforcements from those, --a claimrendered probable by most of the new-comers being from the Army of thePotomac. 

Key and those immediately about him kept their own counsel in the matter, and suffered no secret of their intentions to leak out, until on themorning of the 11th, when it became generally known that the sentenceswere too be carried into effect that day, and inside the prison. 

My first direct information as to this was by a messenger from Key withan order to assemble my company and stand guard over the carpenters whowere to erect the scaffold. He informed me that all the Regulators wouldbe held in readiness to come to our relief if we were attacked in force. I had hoped that if the men were to be hanged I would be spared theunpleasant duty of assisting, for, though I believed they richly deservedthat punishment, I had much rather some one else administered it uponthem. There was no way out of it, however, that I could see, and so"Egypt" and I got the boys together, and marched down to the designatedplace, which was an open space near the end of the street running fromthe South Gate, and kept vacant for the purpose of issuing rations. It was quite near the spot where the Raiders' Big Tent had stood, andafforded as good a view to the rest of the camp as could be found. 

Key had secured the loan of a few beams and rough planks, sufficient tobuild a rude scaffold with. Our first duty was to care for these as theycame in, for such was the need of wood, and plank for tent purposes, thatthey would scarcely have fallen to the ground before they were spiritedaway, had we not stood over them all the time with clubs. 

The carpenters sent by Key came over and set to work. The N'Yaarkersgathered around in considerable numbers, sullen and abusive. They cursedus with all their rich vocabulary of foul epithets, vowed that we shouldnever carry out the execution, and swore that they had marked each onefor vengeance. We returned the compliments in kind, and occasionally itseemed as if a general collision was imminent; but we succeeded inavoiding this, and by noon the scaffold was finished. It was a verysimple affair. A stout beam was fastened on the top of two posts, aboutfifteen feet high. At about the height of a man's head a couple ofboards stretched across the space between the posts, and met in thecenter. The ends at the posts laid on cleats; the ends in the centerrested upon a couple of boards, standing upright, and each having a pieceof rope fastened through a hole in it in such a manner, that a man couldsnatch it from under the planks serving as the floor of the scaffold, andlet the whole thing drop. A rude ladder to ascend by completed thepreparations. 

As the arrangements neared completion the excitement in and around theprison grew intense. Key came over with the balance of the Regulators, and we formed a hollow square around the scaffold, our company markingthe line on the East Side. There were now thirty thousand in the prison. Of these about one-third packed themselves as tightly about our square asthey could stand. The remaining twenty thousand were wedged together ina solid mass on the North Side. Again I contemplated the wonderful, startling, spectacle of a mosaic pavement of human faces covering thewhole broad hillside. 

Outside, the Rebel, infantry was standing in the rifle pits, theartillerymen were in place about their loaded and trained pieces, the No. 4 of each gun holding the lanyard cord in his hand, ready to fire thepiece at the instant of command. The small squad of cavalry was drawn upon the hill near the Star Fort, and near it were the masters of thehounds, with their yelping packs. 

All the hangers-on of the Rebel camp--clerks, teamsters, employer, negros, hundreds of white and colored women, in all forming a motleycrowd of between one and two thousand, were gathered together in a groupbetween the end of the rifle pits and the Star Fort. They had a goodview from there, but a still better one could be had, a little farther tothe right, and in front of the guns. They kept edging up in thatdirection, as crowds will, though they knew the danger they would incurif the artillery opened. 

The day was broiling hot. The sun shot his perpendicular rays down withblistering fierceness, and the densely packed, motionless crowds made theheat almost insupportable. 

Key took up his position inside the square to direct matters. With himwere Limber Jim, Dick McCullough, and one or two others. Also, NedJohnson, Tom Larkin, Sergeant Goody, and three others who were to act ashangmen. Each of these six was provided with a white sack, such as theRebels brought in meal in. Two Corporals of my company--"Stag" Harrisand Wat Payne--were appointed to pull the stays from under the platformat the signal. 

A little after noon the South Gate opened, and Wirz rode in, dressed in asuit of white duck, and mounted on his white horse--a conjunction whichhad gained for him the appellation of "Death on a Pale Horse. " Behindhim walked the faithful old priest, wearing his Church's purple insigniaof the deepest sorrow, and reading the service for the condemned. Thesix doomed men followed, walking between double ranks of Rebel guards. 

All came inside the hollow square and halted. Wirz then said:

"Brizners, I return to you dose men so Boot as I got dem. You haf trieddem yourselves, and found dem guilty--I haf had notting to do wit it. I vash my hands of eferyting connected wit dem. Do wit dem as you like, and may Gott haf mercy on you and on dem. Garts, about face! Voryvarts, march!"

With this he marched out and left us. 

For a moment the condemned looked stunned. They seemed to comprehend forthe first time that it was really the determination of the Regulators tohang them. Before that they had evidently thought that the talk ofhanging was merely bluff. One of them gasped out:

"My God, men, you don't really mean to hang us up there!"

Key answered grimly and laconically:

"That seems to be about the size of it. "

At this they burst out in a passionate storm of intercessions andimprecations, which lasted for a minute or so, when it was stopped by oneof them saying imperatively:

"All of you stop now, and let the priest talk for us. "

At this the priest closed the book upon which he had kept his eyes bentsince his entrance, and facing the multitude on the North Side began aplea for mercy. 

The condemned faced in the same direction, to read their fate in thecountenances of those whom he was addressing. This movement broughtCurtis--a low-statured, massively built man--on the right of their line, and about ten or fifteen steps from my company. 

The whole camp had been as still as death since Wirz's exit. The silenceseemed to become even more profound as the priest began his appeal. For a minute every ear was strained to catch what he said. Then, as thenearest of the thousands comprehended what he was saying they raised ashout of "No! no!! NO!!" "Hang them! hang them!" "Don't let them go!Never!"

"Hang the rascals! hang the villains!"

"Hang, 'em! hang 'em! hang 'em!"

This was taken up all over the prison, and tens of thousands throatsyelled it in a fearful chorus. 

Curtis turned from the crowd with desperation convulsing his features. Tearing off the broad-brimmed hat which he wore, he flung it on theground with the exclamation!

"By God, I'll die this way first!" and, drawing his head down and foldinghis arms about it, he dashed forward for the center of my company, like agreat stone hurled from a catapult. 

"Egypt" and I saw where he was going to strike, and ran down the line tohelp stop him. As he came up we rained blows on his head with our clubs, but so many of us struck at him at once that we broke each other's clubsto pieces, and only knocked him on his knees. He rose with an almostsuperhuman effort, and plunged into the mass beyond. 

The excitement almost became delirium. For an instant I feared thateverything was gone to ruin. "Egypt" and I strained every energy torestore our lines, before the break could be taken advantage of by theothers. Our boys behaved splendidly, standing firm, and in a few secondsthe line was restored. 

As Curtis broke through, Delaney, a brawny Irishman standing next to him, started to follow. He took one step. At the same instant Limber Jim'slong legs took three great strides, and placed him directly in front ofDelaney. Jim's right hand held an enormous bowie-knife, and as he raisedit above Delaney he hissed out:

"If you dare move another step, I'll open you ---- ---- ----, I'll openyou from one end to the other. 

Delaney stopped. This checked the others till our lines reformed. 

When Wirz saw the commotion he was panic-stricken with fear that thelong-dreaded assault on the Stockade had begun. He ran down from theheadquarter steps to the Captain of the battery, shrieking:

"Fire! fire! fire!"

The Captain, not being a fool, could see that the rush was not towardsthe Stockade, but away from it, and he refrained from giving the order. 

But the spectators who had gotten before the guns, heard Wirz's excitedyell, and remembering the consequences to themselves should the artillerybe discharged, became frenzied with fear, and screamed, and fell downover and trampled upon each other in endeavoring to get away. The guardson that side of the Stockade ran down in a panic, and the ten thousandprisoners immediately around us, expecting no less than that the nextinstant we would be swept with grape and canister, stampededtumultuously. There were quite a number of wells right around us, andall of these were filled full of men that fell into them as the crowdrushed away. Many had legs and arms broken, and I have no doubt thatseveral were killed. 

It was the stormiest five minutes that I ever saw. 

While this was going on two of my company, belonging to the Fifth IowaCavalry, were in hot pursuit of Curtis. I had seen them start andshouted to them to come back, as I feared they would be set upon by theRaiders and murdered. But the din was so overpowering that they could nothear me, and doubtless would not have come back if they had heard. 

Curtis ran diagonally down the hill, jumping over the tents and knockingdown the men who happened in his way. Arriving at the swamp he plungedin, sinking nearly to his hips in the fetid, filthy ooze. He forged hisway through with terrible effort. His pursuers followed his example, andcaught up to him just as he emerged on the other side. They struck himon the back of the head with their clubs, and knocked him down. 

By this time order had been restored about us. The guns remained silent, and the crowd massed around us again. From where we were we could seethe successful end of the chase after Curtis, and could see his captorsstart back with him. Their success was announced with a roar of applausefrom the North Side. Both captors and captured were greatly exhausted, and they were coming back very slowly. Key ordered the balance up on tothe scaffold. They obeyed promptly. The priest resumed his reading ofthe service for the condemned. The excitement seemed to make the doomedones exceedingly thirsty. I never saw men drink such inordinatequantities of water. They called for it continually, gulped down a quartor more at a time, and kept two men going nearly all the time carrying itto them. 

When Curtis finally arrived, he sat on the ground for a minute or so, torest, and then, reeking with filth, slowly and painfully climbed thesteps. Delaney seemed to think he was suffering as much from fright asanything else, and said to him:

"Come on up, now, show yourself a man, and die game. "

Again the priest resumed his reading, but it had no interest to Delaney, who kept calling out directions to Pete Donelly, who was standing in thecrowd, as to dispositions to be made of certain bits of stolen property:to give a watch to this one, a ring to another, and so on. Once thepriest stopped and said:

"My son, let the things of this earth go, and turn your attention towardthose of heaven. "

Delaney paid no attention to this admonition. The whole six then begandelivering farewell messages to those in the crowd. Key pulled a watchfrom his pocket and said:

"Two minutes more to talk. "

Delaney said cheerfully:

"Well, good by, b'ys; if I've hurted any of y ez, I hope ye'll forgiveme. Shpake up, now, any of yez that I've hurted, and say yell forgiveme. "

We called upon Marion Friend, whose throat Delaney had tried to cut threeweeks before while robbing him of forty dollars, to come forward, butFriend was not in a forgiving mood, and refused with an oath. 

Key said:

"Time's up!" put the watch back in his pocket and raised his hand like anofficer commanding a gun. Harris and Payne laid hold of the ropes to thesupports of the planks. Each of the six hangmen tied a condemned man'shands, pulled a meal sack down over his head, placed the noose around hisneck, drew it up tolerably close, and sprang to the ground. The priestbegan praying aloud. 

Key dropped his hand. Payne and Harris snatched the supports out with asingle jerk. The planks fell with a clatter. Five of the bodies swungaround dizzily in the air. The sixth that of "Mosby, " a large, powerful, raw-boned man, one of the worst in the lot, and who, among other crimes, had killed Limber Jim's brother-broke the rope, and fell with a thud tothe ground. Some of the men ran forward, examined the body, and decidedthat he still lived. The rope was cut off his neck, the meal sackremoved, and water thrown in his face until consciousness returned. At the first instant he thought he was in eternity. He gasped out:

"Where am I? Am I in the other world?"

Limber Jim muttered that they would soon show him where he was, and wenton grimly fixing up the scaffold anew. "Mosby" soon realized what hadhappened, and the unrelenting purpose of the Regulator Chiefs. Then hebegan to beg piteously for his life, saying:

"O for God's sake, do not put me up there again! God has spared my lifeonce. He meant that you should be merciful to me. "

Limber Jim deigned him no reply. When the scaffold was rearranged, and astout rope had replaced the broken one, he pulled the meal sack once moreover "Mosby's" head, who never ceased his pleadings. Then picking up thelarge man as if he were a baby, he carried him to the scaffold and handedhim up to Tom Larkin, who fitted the noose around his neck and sprangdown. The supports had not been set with the same delicacy as at first, and Limber Jim had to set his heel and wrench desperately at them beforehe could force them out. Then "Mosby" passed away without a struggle. 

After hanging till life was extinct, the bodies were cut down, themeal-sacks pulled off their faces, and the Regulators formal two parallellines, through which all the prisoners passed and took a look at thebodies. Pete Donnelly and Dick Allen knelt down and wiped the froth offDelaney's lips, and swore vengeance against those who had done him todeath. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

AFTER THE EXECUTION--FORMATION OF A POLICE FORCE--ITS FIRST CHIEF--"SPANKING" AN OFFENDER. 

After the executions Key, knowing that he, and all those prominentlyconnected with the hanging, would be in hourly danger of assassination ifthey remained inside, secured details as nurses and ward-masters in thehospital, and went outside. In this crowd were Key, Ned Carrigan, LimberJim, Dick McCullough, the six hangmen, the two Corporals who pulled theprops from under the scaffold, and perhaps some others whom I do not nowremember. 

In the meanwhile provision had been made for the future maintenance oforder in the prison by the organization of a regular police force, whichin time came to number twelve hundred men. These were divided intocompanies, under appropriate officers. Guards were detailed for certainlocations, patrols passed through the camp in all directions continually, and signals with whistles could summon sufficient assistance to suppressany disturbance, or carry out any orders from the chief. 

The chieftainship was first held by Key, but when he went outside heappointed Sergeant A. R. Hill, of the One Hundredth O. V. I. --now aresident of Wauseon, Ohio, --his successor. Hill was one of thenotabilities of that immense throng. A great, broad-shouldered, giant, in the prime of his manhood--the beginning of his thirtieth year--he wasas good-natured as big, and as mild-mannered as brave. He spoke slowly, softly, and with a slightly rustic twang, that was very tempting to acertain class of sharps to take him up for a "luberly greeny. " The manwho did so usually repented his error in sack-cloth and ashes. 

Hill first came into prominence as the victor in the most stubbornlycontested fight in the prison history of Belle Isle. When the squad ofthe One Hundredth Ohio--captured at Limestone Station, East Tennessee, inSeptember, 1863--arrived on Belle Isle, a certain Jack Oliver, of theNineteenth Indiana, was the undisputed fistic monarch of the Island. He did not bear his blushing honors modestly; few of a right arm thatindefinite locality known as "the middle of next week, " is somethingthat the possessor can as little resist showing as can a girl her firstsolitaire ring. To know that one can certainly strike a disagreeablefellow out of time is pretty sure to breed a desire to do that thingwhenever occasion serves. Jack Oliver was one who did not let his bicepsrust in inaction, but thrashed everybody on the Island whom he thoughtneeded it, and his ideas as to those who should be included in this classwidened daily, until it began to appear that he would soon feel it hisduty to let no unwhipped man escape, but pound everybody on the Island. 

One day his evil genius led him to abuse a rather elderly man belongingto Hill's mess. As he fired off his tirade of contumely, Hill said withmore than his usual "soft" rusticity:

"Mister--I--don't--think--it--just--right--for--a--young--man--to--call--an--old--one--such--bad names. "

Jack Oliver turned on him savagely. 

"Well! may be you want to take it up?"

The grin on Hill's face looked still more verdant, as he answered withgentle deliberation:

"Well--mister--I--don't--go--around--a--hunting--things--but--I--ginerally--take--care--of--all--that's--sent--me!"

Jack foamed, but his fiercest bluster could not drive that infantilesmile from Hill's face, nor provoke a change in the calm slowness of hisspeech. 

It was evident that nothing would do but a battle-royal, and Jack hadsense enough to see that the imperturbable rustic was likely to give hima job of some difficulty. He went off and came back with his clan, whileHill's comrades of the One Hundredth gathered around to insure him fairplay. Jack pulled off his coat and vest, rolled up his sleeves, and madeother elaborate preparations for the affray. Hill, without removing agarment, said, as he surveyed him with a mocking smile:

"Mister--you--seem--to--be--one--of--them--partick-e-ler--fellers. "

Jack roared out, "By ---, I'll make you partickeler before I get through with you. Now, how shall we settle this? Regular stand-up-and knock-down, or rough andtumble?"

If anything Hill's face was more vacantly serene, and his tones blanderthan ever, as he answered:

"Strike--any--gait--that--suits--you, --Mister;--I guess--I--will--be--able--to--keep--up--with--you. "

They closed. Hill feinted with his left, and as Jack uncovered to guard, he caught him fairly on the lower left ribs, by a blow from his mightyright fist, that sounded--as one of the by-standers expressed it--"likestriking a hollow log with a maul. "

The color in Jack's face paled. He did not seem to understand how he hadlaid himself open to such a pass, and made the same mistake, receivingagain a sounding blow in the short ribs. This taught him nothing, either, for again he opened his guard in response to a feint, and againcaught a blow on his luckless left, ribs, that drove the blood from hisface and the breath from his body. He reeled back among his supportersfor an instant to breathe. Recovering his wind, be dashed at Hillfeinted strongly with his right, but delivered a terrible kick againstthe lower part of the latter's abdomen. Both closed and fought savagelyat half-arm's length for an instant; during which Hill struck Jack sofairly in the mouth as to break out three front teeth, which the latterswallowed. Then they clenched and struggled to throw each other. Hill'ssuperior strength and skill crushed his opponent to the ground, and hefell upon him. As they grappled there, one of Jack's followers sought toaid his leader by catching Hill by the hair, intending to kick him in theface. In an instant he was knocked down by a stalwart member of the OneHundredth, and then literally lifted out of the ring by kicks. 

Jack was soon so badly beaten as to be unable to cry "enough!" One ofhis friends did that service for him, the fight ceased, and thenceforthMr. Oliver resigned his pugilistic crown, and retired to the shades ofprivate life. He died of scurvy and diarrhea, some months afterward, inAndersonville. 

The almost hourly scenes of violence and crime that marked the days andnights before the Regulators began operations were now succeeded by thegreatest order. The prison was freer from crime than the best governedCity. There were frequent squabbles and fights, of course, and manypetty larcenies. Rations of bread and of wood, articles of clothing, and the wretched little cans and half canteens that formed our cookingutensils, were still stolen, but all these were in a sneak-thief way. There was an entire absence of the audacious open-day robbery and murder--the "raiding" of the previous few weeks. The summary punishmentinflicted on the condemned was sufficient to cow even bolder men than theRaiders, and they were frightened into at least quiescence. 

Sergeant Hill's administration was vigorous, and secured the bestresults. He became a judge of all infractions of morals and law, and satat the door of his tent to dispense justice to all comers, like the Cadiof a Mahometan Village. His judicial methods and punishments alsoreminded one strongly of the primitive judicature of Oriental lands. The wronged one came before him and told his tale: he had his blouse, orhis quart cup, or his shoes, or his watch, or his money stolen during thenight. The suspected one was also summoned, confronted with his accuser, and sharply interrogated. Hill would revolve the stories in his mind, decide the innocence or guilt of the accused, and if he thought theaccusation sustained, order the culprit to punishment. He did notimitate his Mussulman prototypes to the extent of bowstringing ordecapitating the condemned, nor did he cut any thief's hands off, nor yetnail his ears to a doorpost, but he introduced a modification of thebastinado that made those who were punished by it even wish they weredead. The instrument used was what is called in the South a "shake"--a split shingle, a yard or more long, and with one end whittled down toform a handle. The culprit was made to bend down until he could catcharound his ankles with his hands. The part of the body thus brought intomost prominence was denuded of clothing and "spanked" from one to twentytimes, as Hill ordered, by the "shake" in same strong and willing hand. It was very amusing--to the bystanders. The "spankee" never seemed toenter very heartily into the mirth of the occasion. As a rule he slepton his face for a week or so after, and took his meals standing. 

The fear of the spanking, and Hill's skill in detecting the guilty ones, had a very salutary effect upon the smaller criminals. 

The Raiders who had been put into irons were very restive under theinfliction, and begged Hill daily to release them. They professed thegreatest penitence, and promised the most exemplary behavior for thefuture. Hill refused to release them, declaring that they should wearthe irons until delivered up to our Government. 

One of the Raiders--named Heffron--had, shortly after his arrest, turnedState's evidence, and given testimony that assisted materially in theconviction of his companions. One morning, a week or so after thehanging, his body was found lying among the other dead at the South Gate. The impression made by the fingers of the hand that had strangled him, were still plainly visible about the throat. There was no doubt as towhy he had been killed, or that the Raiders were his murderers, but theactual perpetrators were never discovered. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

JULY--THE PRISON BECOMES MORE CROWDED, THE WEATHER HOTTER, NATIONSPOORER, AND MORTALITY GREATER--SOME OF THE PHENOMENA OF SUFFERING ANDDEATH. 

All during July the prisoners came streaming in by hundreds and thousandsfrom every portion of the long line of battle, stretching from theEastern bank of the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic. Over onethousand squandered by Sturgis at Guntown came in; two thousand of thosecaptured in the desperate blow dealt by Hood against the Army of theTennessee on the 22d of the month before Atlanta; hundreds from Hunter'sluckless column in the Shenandoah Valley, thousands from Grant's lines infront of Petersburg. In all, seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eightwere, during the month, turned into that seething mass of corruptinghumanity to be polluted and tainted by it, and to assist in turn to makeit fouler and deadlier. Over seventy hecatombs of chosen victims--of fair youths in the first flush of hopeful manhood, at the thresholdof a life of honor to themselves and of usefulness to the community;beardless boys, rich in the priceless affections of homes, fathers, mothers, sisters and sweethearts, with minds thrilling with highaspirations for the bright future, were sent in as the monthly sacrificeto this Minotaur of the Rebellion, who, couched in his foul lair, slewthem, not with the merciful delivery of speedy death, as his Cretanprototype did the annual tribute of Athenian youths and maidens, but, gloating over his prey, doomed them to lingering destruction. He rottedtheir flesh with the scurvy, racked their minds with intolerablesuspense, burned their bodies with the slow fire of famine, and delightedin each separate pang, until they sank beneath the fearful accumulation. Theseus [Sherman. D. W. ]--the deliverer--was coming. His terrible swordcould be seen gleaming as it rose and fell on the banks of the James, andin the mountains beyond Atlanta, where he was hewing his way towards themand the heart of the Southern Confederacy. But he came too late to savethem. Strike as swiftly and as heavily as he would, he could not strikeso hard nor so sure at his foes with saber blow and musket shot, as theycould at the hapless youths with the dreadful armament of starvation anddisease. 

Though the deaths were one thousand eight hundred and seventeen more thanwere killed at the battle of Shiloh--this left the number in the prisonat the end of the month thirty-one thousand six hundred andseventy-eight. Let me assist the reader's comprehension of themagnitude of this number by giving the population of a few importantCities, according to the census of 1870:

Cambridge, Mass 89, 639Charleston, S. C. 48, 958Columbus, O. 31, 274Dayton, O. 30, 473Fall River, Mass 26, 766Kansas City, Mo 32, 260

The number of prisoners exceeded the whole number of men between the agesof eighteen and forty-five in several of the States and Territories inthe Union. Here, for instance, are the returns for 1870, of men ofmilitary age in some portions of the country:

Arizona 5, 157Colorado 15, 166Dakota 5, 301Idaho 9, 431Montana 12, 418Nebraska 35, 677Nevada 24, 762New Hampshire 60, 684Oregon 23, 959Rhode Island 44, 377Vermont 62, 450West Virginia 6, 832

It was more soldiers than could be raised to-day, under strong pressure, in either Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Dakota, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Medico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont or West Virginia. 

These thirty-one thousand six hundred and seventy-eight active young men, who were likely to find the confines of a State too narrow for them, werecooped up on thirteen acres of ground--less than a farmer gives forplay-ground for a half dozen colts or a small flock of sheep. There washardly room for all to lie down at night, and to walk a few hundred feetin any direction would require an hour's patient threading of the mass ofmen and tents. 

The weather became hotter and hotter; at midday the sand would burn thehand. The thin skins of fair and auburn-haired men blistered under thesun's rays, and swelled up in great watery puffs, which soon became thebreeding grounds of the hideous maggots, or the still more deadlygangrene. The loathsome swamp grew in rank offensiveness with everyburning hour. The pestilence literally stalked at noon-day, and struckhis victims down on every hand. One could not look a rod in anydirection without seeing at least a dozen men in the last frightfulstages of rotting Death. 

Let me describe the scene immediately around my own tent during the lasttwo weeks of July, as a sample of the condition of the whole prison:I will take a space not larger than a good sized parlor or sitting room. On this were at least fifty of us. Directly in front of me lay twobrothers--named Sherwood--belonging to Company I, of my battalion, whocame originally from Missouri. They were now in the last stages ofscurvy and diarrhea. Every particle of muscle and fat about their limbsand bodies had apparently wasted away, leaving the skin clinging close tothe bone of the face, arms, hands, ribs and thighs--everywhere except thefeet and legs, where it was swollen tense and transparent, distended withgallons of purulent matter. Their livid gums, from which most of theirteeth had already fallen, protruded far beyond their lips. To their leftlay a Sergeant and two others of their company, all three slowly dyingfrom diarrhea, and beyond was a fair-haired German, young and intelligentlooking, whose life was ebbing tediously away. To my right was ahandsome young Sergeant of an Illinois Infantry Regiment, captured atKenesaw. His left arm had been amputated between the shoulder and elbow, and he was turned into the Stockade with the stump all undressed, savethe ligating of the arteries. Of course, he had not been inside an houruntil the maggot flies had laid eggs in the open wound, and before theday was gone the worms were hatched out, and rioting amid the inflamedand super-sensitive nerves, where their every motion was agony. Accustomed as we were to misery, we found a still lower depth in hismisfortune, and I would be happier could I forget his pale, drawn face, as he wandered uncomplainingly to and fro, holding his maimed limb withhis right hand, occasionally stopping to squeeze it, as one does a boil, and press from it a stream of maggots and pus. I do not think he ate orslept for a week before he died. Next to him staid an Irish Sergeant ofa New York Regiment, a fine soldierly man, who, with pardonable pride, wore, conspicuously on his left breast, a medal gained by gallantry whilea British soldier in the Crimea. He was wasting away with diarrhea, anddied before the month was out. 

This was what one could see on every square rod of the prison. Where Iwas was not only no worse than the rest of the prison, but was probablymuch better and healthier, as it was the highest ground inside, farthestfrom the Swamp, and having the dead line on two sides, had a ventilationthat those nearer the center could not possibly have. Yet, with allthese conditions in our favor, the mortality was as I have described. 

Near us an exasperating idiot, who played the flute, had establishedhimself. Like all poor players, he affected the low, mournful notes, as plaintive as the distant cooing of the dove in lowering, weather. He played or rather tooted away in his "blues"-inducing strain hour afterhour, despite our energetic protests, and occasionally flinging a club athim. There was no more stop to him than to a man with a hand-organ, andto this day the low, sad notes of a flute are the swiftest reminder to meof those sorrowful, death-laden days. 

I had an illustration one morning of how far decomposition would progressin a man's body before he died. My chum and I found a treasure-trove inthe streets, in the shape of the body of a man who died during the night. The value of this "find" was that if we took it to the gate, we would beallowed to carry it outside to the deadhouse, and on our way back have anopportunity to pick up a chunk of wood, to use in cooking. Whilediscussing our good luck another party came up and claimed the body. A verbal dispute led to one of blows, in which we came off victorious, and I hastily caught hold of the arm near the elbow to help bear the bodyaway. The skin gave way under my hand, and slipped with it down to thewrist, like a torn sleeve. It was sickening, but I clung to my prize, and secured a very good chunk of wood while outside with it. The woodwas very much needed by my mess, as our squad had then had none for morethan a week. 

CHAPTER XL. 

THE BATTLE OF THE 22D OF JULY--THE ARMS OF THE TENNESSEE ASSAULTED FRONTAND REAR--DEATH OF GENERAL MCPHERSON--ASSUMPTION OF COMMAND BY GENERALLOGAN--RESULT OF THE BATTLE. 

Naturally, we had a consuming hunger for news of what was beingaccomplished by our armies toward crushing the Rebellion. Now, more thanever, had we reason to ardently wish for the destruction of the Rebelpower. Before capture we had love of country and a natural desire forthe triumph of her flag to animate us. Now we had a hatred of the Rebelsthat passed expression, and a fierce longing to see those who dailytortured and insulted us trampled down in the dust of humiliation. 

The daily arrival of prisoners kept us tolerably well informed as to thegeneral progress of the campaign, and we added to the information thusobtained by getting--almost daily--in some manner or another--a copy of aRebel paper. Most frequently these were Atlanta papers, or an issue ofthe "Memphis-Corinth-Jackson-Grenada-Chattanooga-Resacca-Marietta-AtlantaAppeal, " as they used to facetiously term a Memphis paper that left thatCity when it was taken in 1862, and for two years fell back from place toplace, as Sherman's Army advanced, until at last it gave up the strugglein September, 1864, in a little Town south of Atlanta, after about twothousand miles of weary retreat from an indefatigable pursuer. Thepapers were brought in by "fresh fish, " purchased from the guards at fromfifty cents to one dollar apiece, or occasionally thrown in to us whenthey had some specially disagreeable intelligence, like the defeat ofBanks, or Sturgis, or Bunter, to exult over. I was particularlyfortunate in getting hold of these. Becoming installed as general readerfor a neighborhood of several thousand men, everything of this kind wasimmediately brought to me, to be read aloud for the benefit of everybody. All the older prisoners knew me by the nick-name of "Illinoy"--a designation arising from my wearing on my cap, when I entered prison, a neat little white metal badge of "ILLS. " When any reading matter wasbrought into our neighborhood, there would be a general cry of:

"Take it up to 'Illinoy, '" and then hundreds would mass around myquarters to bear the news read. 

The Rebel papers usually had very meager reports of the operations of thearmies, and these were greatly distorted, but they were still veryinteresting, and as we always started in to read with the expectationthat the whole statement was a mass of perversions and lies, where truthwas an infrequent accident, we were not likely to be much impressed withit. 

There was a marled difference in the tone of the reports brought in fromthe different armies. Sherman's men were always sanguine. They had nodoubt that they were pushing the enemy straight to the wall, and thatevery day brought the Southern Confederacy much nearer its downfall. Those from the Army of the Potomac were never so hopeful. They wouldadmit that Grant was pounding Lee terribly, but the shadow of thefrequent defeats of the Army of the Potomac seemed to hang depressinglyover them. 

There came a day, however, when our sanguine hopes as to Sherman werechecked by a possibility that he had failed; that his long campaigntowards Atlanta had culminated in such a reverse under the very walls ofthe City as would compel an abandonment of the enterprise, and possibly ahumiliating retreat. We knew that Jeff. Davis and his Government werestrongly dissatisfied with the Fabian policy of Joe Johnston. The papershad told us of the Rebel President's visit to Atlanta, of his bittercomments on Johnston's tactics; of his going so far as to sneer about thenecessity of providing pontoons at Key West, so that Johnston mightcontinue his retreat even to Cuba. Then came the news of Johnston'sSupersession by Hood, and the papers were full of the exultingpredictions of what would now be accomplished "when that gallant youngsoldier is once fairly in the saddle. "

All this meant one supreme effort to arrest the onward course of Sherman. It indicated a resolve to stake the fate of Atlanta, and the fortunes ofthe Confederacy in the West, upon the hazard of one desperate fight. We watched the summoning up of every Rebel energy for the blow withapprehension. We dreaded another Chickamauga. 

The blow fell on the 22d of July. It was well planned. The Army of theTennessee, the left of Sherman's forces, was the part struck. On thenight of the 21st Hood marched a heavy force around its left flank andgained its rear. On the 22d this force fell on the rear with theimpetuous violence of a cyclone, while the Rebels in the worksimmediately around Atlanta attacked furiously in front. 

It was an ordeal that no other army ever passed through successfully. The steadiest troops in Europe would think it foolhardiness to attempt towithstand an assault in force in front and rear at the same time. The finest legions that follow any flag to-day must almost inevitablysuccumb to such a mode of attack. But the seasoned veterans of the Armyof the Tennessee encountered the shock with an obstinacy which showedthat the finest material for soldiery this planet holds was that in whichundaunted hearts beat beneath blue blouses. Springing over the front oftheir breastworks, they drove back with a withering fire the forceassailing them in the rear. This beaten off, they jumped back to theirproper places, and repulsed the assault in front. This was the way thebattle was waged until night compelled a cessation of operations. Ourboys were alternately behind the breastworks firing at Rebels advancingupon the front, and in front of the works firing upon those coming up inthe rear. Sometimes part of our line would be on one side of the works, and part on the other. 

In the prison we were greatly excited over the result of the engagement, of which we were uncertain for many days. A host of new prisonersperhaps two thousand--was brought in from there, but as they werecaptured during the progress of the fight, they could not speakdefinitely as to its issue. The Rebel papers exulted without stint overwhat they termed "a glorious victory. " They were particularly jubilantover the death of McPherson, who, they claimed, was the brain and guidinghand of Sherman's army. One paper likened him to the pilot-fish, whichguides the shark to his prey. Now that he was gone, said the paper, Sherman's army becomes a great lumbering hulk, with no one in it capableof directing it, and it must soon fall to utter ruin under the skilfullydelivered strokes of the gallant Hood. 

We also knew that great numbers of wounded had been brought to the prisonhospital, and this seemed to confirm the Rebel claim of a victory, as itshowed they retained possession of the battle field. 

About the 1st of August a large squad of Sherman's men, captured in oneof the engagements subsequent to the 22d, came in. We gathered aroundthem eagerly. Among them I noticed a bright, curly-haired, blue-eyedinfantryman--or boy, rather, as he was yet beardless. His cap was marked"68th O. Y. Y. L, " his sleeves were garnished with re-enlistment stripes, and on the breast of his blouse was a silver arrow. To the eye of thesoldier this said that he was a veteran member of the Sixty-EighthRegiment of Ohio Infantry (that is, having already served three years, hehad re-enlisted for the war), and that he belonged to the Third Divisionof the Seventeenth Army Corps. He was so young and fresh looking thatone could hardly believe him to be a veteran, but if his stripes had notsaid this, the soldierly arrangement of clothing and accouterments, andthe graceful, self-possessed pose of limbs and body would have told theobserver that he was one of those "Old Reliables" with whom Sherman andGrant had already subdued a third of the Confederacy. His blanket, which, for a wonder, the Rebels had neglected to take from him, wastightly rolled, its ends tied together, and thrown over his shoulderscarf-fashion. His pantaloons were tucked inside his stocking tops, that were pulled up as far as possible, and tied tightly around his anklewith a string. A none-too-clean haversack, containing the inevitablesooty quart cup, and even blacker half-canteen, waft slung easily fromthe shoulder opposite to that on which the blanket rested. Hand him hisfaithful Springfield rifle, put three days' rations in his haversack, andforty rounds in his cartridge bog, and he would be ready, without aninstant's demur or question, to march to the ends of the earth, and fightanything that crossed his path. He was a type of the honest, honorable, self respecting American boy, who, as a soldier, the world has notequaled in the sixty centuries that war has been a profession. I suggested to him that he was rather a youngster to be wearing veteranchevrons. "Yes, " said he, "I am not so old as some of the rest of theboys, but I have seen about as much service and been in the businessabout as long as any of them. They call me 'Old Dad, ' I suppose becauseI was the youngest boy in the Regiment, when we first entered theservice, though our whole Company, officers and all, were only a lot ofboys, and the Regiment to day, what's left of 'em, are about as young alot of officers and men as there are in the service. Why, our oldColonel ain't only twenty-four years old now, and he has been in commandever since we went into Vicksburg. I have heard it said by our boys thatsince we veteranized the whole Regiment, officers, and men, average lessthan twenty-four years old. But they are gray-hounds to march andstayers in a fight, you bet. Why, the rest of the troops over in WestTennessee used to call our Brigade 'Leggett's Cavalry, ' for they alwayshad us chasing Old Forrest, and we kept him skedaddling, too, prettylively. But I tell you we did get into a red hot scrimmage on the 22d. It just laid over Champion Hills, or any of the big fights aroundVicksburg, and they were lively enough to amuse any one. "

"So you were in the affair on the 22d, were you! We are awful anxious tohear all about it. Come over here to my quarters and tell us all youknow. All we know is that there has been a big fight, with McPhersonkilled, and a heavy loss of life besides, and the Rebels claim a greatvictory. "

"O, they be -----. It was the sickest victory they ever got. About onemore victory of that kind would make their infernal old Confederacy readyfor a coroner's inquest. Well, I can tell you pretty much all about thatfight, for I reckon if the truth was known, our regiment fired about thefirst and last shot that opened and closed the fighting on that day. Well, you see the whole Army got across the river, and were closing inaround the City of Atlanta. Our Corps, the Seventeenth, was the extremeleft of the army, and were moving up toward the City from the East. The Fifteenth (Logan's) Corps joined us on the right, then the Army ofthe Cumberland further to the right. We run onto the Rebs about sundownthe 21st. They had some breastworks on a ridge in front of us, and wehad a pretty sharp fight before we drove them off. We went right towork, and kept at it all night in changing and strengthening the oldRebel barricades, fronting them towards Atlanta, and by morning had somegood solid works along our whole line. During the night we fancied wecould hear wagons or artillery moving away in front of us, apparentlygoing South, or towards our left. About three or four o'clock in themorning, while I was shoveling dirt like a beaver out on the works, theLieutenant came to me and said the Colonel wanted to see me, pointing toa large tree in the rear, where I could find him. I reported and foundhim with General Leggett, who commanded our Division, talking mightyserious, and Bob Wheeler, of F Company, standing there with hisSpringfield at a parade rest. As soon as I came up, the Colonel says:

"Boys, the General wants two level-headed chaps to go out beyond thepickets to the front and toward the left. I have selected you for theduty. Go as quietly as possible and as fast as you can; keep your eyesand ears open; don't fire a shot if you can help it, and come back andtell us exactly what you have seen and heard, and not what you imagine orsuspect. I have selected you for the duty. '

"He gave us the countersign, and off we started over the breastworks andthrough the thick woods. We soon came to our skirmish or pickets, only afew rods in front of our works, and cautioned them not to fire on us ingoing or returning. We went out as much as half a mile or more, until wecould plainly hear the sound of wagons and artillery. We then cautiouslycrept forward until we could see the main road leading south from theCity filled with marching men, artillery and teams. We could hear thecommands of the officers and see the flags and banners of regiment afterregiment as they passed us. We got back quietly and quickly, passedthrough our picket line all right, and found the General and our Colonelsitting on a log where we had left them, waiting for us. We reportedwhat we had seen and heard, and gave it as our opinion that the Johnnieswere evacuating Atlanta. The General shook his head, and the Colonelsays: 'You may re turn to your company. ' Bob says to me:

"'The old General shakes his head as though he thought them d---d Rebsain't evacuating Atlanta so mighty sudden, but are up to some devilmentagain. I ain't sure but he's right. They ain't going to keep fallingback and falling back to all eternity, but are just agoin' to give us arip-roaring great big fight one o' these days--when they get a goodready. You hear me!'

"Saying which we both went to our companies, and laid down to get alittle sleep. It was about daylight then, and I must have snoozed awayuntil near noon, when I heard the order 'fall in!' and found the regimentgetting into line, and the boys all tallying about going right intoAtlanta; that the Rebels had evacuated the City during the night, andthat we were going to have a race with the Fifteenth Corps as to whichwould get into the City first. We could look away out across a largefield in front of our works, and see the skirmish line advancing steadilytowards the main works around the City. Not a shot was being, fired oneither side. 

"To our surprise, instead of marching to the front and toward the City, we filed off into a small road cut through the woods and marched rapidlyto the rear. We could not understand what it meant. We marched at quicktime, feeling pretty mad that we had to go to the rear, when the rest ofour Division were going into Atlanta. 

"We passed the Sixteenth Corps lying on their arms, back in some openfields, and the wagon trains of our Corps all comfortably corralled, andfinally found ourselves out by the Seventeenth Corps headquarters. Twoor three companies were sent out to picket several roads that seemed tocross at that point, as it was reported 'Rebel Cavalry' had been seen onthese roads but a short time before, and this accounted for our beingrushed out in such a great hurry. 

"We had just stacked arms and were going to take a little rest after ourrapid march, when several Rebel prisoners were brought in by some of theboys who had straggled a little. They found the Rebels on the road wehad just marched out on. Up to this time not a shot had been fired. All was quiet back at the main works we had just left, when suddenly wesaw several staff officers come tearing up to the Colonel, who ordered usto 'fall in!' 'Take aims!' 'about, face!' The Lieutenant Colonel dasheddown one of the roads where one of the companies had gone out on picket. The Major and Adjutant galloped down the others. We did not wait forthem to come back, though, but moved right back on the road we had justcome out, in line of battle, our colors in the road, and our flanks inopen timber. We soon reached a fence enclosing a large field, and therecould see a line of Rebels moving by the flank, and forming, facingtoward Atlanta, but to the left and in the rear of the position occupiedby our Corps. As soon as we reached the fence we fired a round or twointo the backs of these gray coats, who broke into confusion. 

"Just then the other companies joined us, and we moved off on 'doublequick by the right flank, ' for you see we were completely cut off fromthe troops up at the front, and we had to get well over to the right toget around the flank of the Rebels. Just about the time we fired on therebels the Sixteenth Corps opened up a hot fire of musketry and artilleryon them, some of their shot coming over mighty close to where we were. We marched pretty fast, and finally turned in through some open fields tothe left, and came out just in the rear of the Sixteenth Corps, who werefighting like devils along their whole line. 

"Just as we came out into the open field we saw General R. K. Scott, who used to be our Colonel, and who commanded our brigade, come tearingtoward us with one or two aids or orderlies. He was on his big clay-bankhorse, 'Old Hatchie, ' as we called him, as we captured him on thebattlefield at the battle of 'Matamora, ' or 'Hell on the Hatchie, ' as ourboys always called it. He rode up to the Colonel, said somethinghastily, when all at once we heard the all-firedest crash of musketry andartillery way up at the front where we had built the works the nightbefore and left the rest of our brigade and Division getting ready toprance into Atlanta when we were sent off to the rear. Scott put spursto his old horse, who was one of the fastest runners in our Division, and away he went back towards the position where his brigade and thetroops immediately to their left were now hotly engaged. He rode rightalong in rear of the Sixteenth Corps, paying no attention apparently tothe shot and shell and bullets that were tearing up the earth andexploding and striking all around him. His aids and orderlies vainlytried to keep up with him. We could plainly see the Rebel lines as theycame out of the woods into the open grounds to attack the SixteenthCorps, which had hastily formed in the open field, without any signs ofworks, and were standing up like men, having a hand-to-hand fight. We were just far enough in the rear so that every blasted shot or shellthat was fired too high to hit the ranks of the Sixteenth Corps camerattling over amongst us. All this time we were marching fast, followingin the direction General Scott had taken, who evidently had ordered theColonel to join his brigade up at the front. We were down under thecrest of a little hill, following along the bank of a little creek, keeping under cover of the bank as much as possible to protect us fromthe shots of the enemy. We suddenly saw General Logan and one or two ofhis staff upon the right bank of the ravine riding rapidly toward us. As he neared the head of the regiment he shouted:

"'Halt! What regiment is that, and where are you going?'" The Colonel, in a loud voice, that all could hear, told him: "The Sixty-Eighth Ohio;going to join our brigade of the Third Division--your old Division, General, of the Seventeenth Corps. "

"Logan says, 'you had better go right in here on the left of Dodge. The Third Division have hardly ground enough left now to bury their dead. God knows they need you. But try it on, if you think you can get tothem. '

"Just at this moment a staff officer came riding up on the opposite sideof the ravine from where Logan was and interrupted Logan, who was abouttelling the Colonel not to try to go to the position held by the ThirdDivision by the road cut through the woods whence we had come out, but tokeep off to the right towards the Fifteenth Corps, as the woods referredto were full of Rebels. The officer saluted Logan, and shouted across:

"General Sherman directs me to inform you of the death of GeneralMcPherson, and orders you to take command of the Army of the Tennessee;have Dodge close well up to the Seventeenth Corps, and Sherman willreinforce you to the extent of the whole army. '

"Logan, standing in his stirrups, on his beautiful black horse, formed apicture against the blue sky as we looked up the ravine at him, his blackeyes fairly blazing and his long black hair waving in the wind. He replied in a ringing, clear tone that we all could hear:

"Say to General Sherman I have heard of McPherson's death, and haveassumed the command of the Army of the Tennessee, and have alreadyanticipated his orders in regard to closing the gap between Dodge and theSeventeenth Corps. '

"This, of course, all happened in one quarter of the time I have beentelling you. Logan put spurs to his horse and rode in one direction, the staff officer of General Sherman in another, and we started on arapid step toward the front. This was the first we had heard ofMcPherson's death, and it made us feel very bad. Some of the officersand men cried as though they had lost a brother; others pressed theirlips, gritted their teeth, and swore to avenge his death. He was a greatfavorite with all his Army, particularly of our Corps, which he commandedfor a long while. Our company, especially, knew him well, and loved himdearly, for we had been his Headquarters Guard for over a year. As wemarched along, toward the front, we could see brigades, and regiments, and batteries of artillery; coming over from the right of the Army, andtaking position in new lines in rear of the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCorps. Major Generals and their staffs, Brigadier Generals and theirstaffs, were mighty thick along the banks of the little ravine we werefollowing; stragglers and wounded men by the hundred were pouring in tothe safe shelter formed by the broken ground along which we were rapidlymarching; stories were heard of divisions, brigades and regiments thatthese wounded or stragglers belonged, having been all cut to pieces;officers all killed; and the speaker, the only one of his command notkilled, wounded or captured. But you boys have heard and seen the samecowardly sneaks, probably, in fights that you were in. The battle ragedfuriously all this time; part of the time the Sixteenth Corps seemed tobe in the worst; then it would let up on them and the Seventeenth Corpswould be hotly engaged along their whole front. 

"We had probably marched half an hour since leaving Logan, and weregetting pretty near back to our main line of works, when the Colonelordered a halt and knapsacks to be unslung and piled up. I tell you itwas a relief to get them off, for it was a fearful hot day, and we hadbeen marching almost double quick. We knew that this meant businessthough, and that we were stripping for the fight, which we would soon bein. Just at this moment we saw an ambulance, with the horses on a deadrun, followed by two or three mounted officers and men, coming righttowards us out of the very woods Logan had cautioned the Colonel toavoid. When the ambulance got to where we were it halted. It was prettywell out of danger from the bullets and shell of the enemy. Theystopped, and we recognized Major Strong, of McPherson's Staff, whom theall knew, as he was the Chief Inspector of our Corps, and in theambulance he had the body of General McPherson. Major Strong, it appears, during a slight lull in the fighting at that part of theline, having taken an ambulance and driven into the very jaws of death torecover the remains of his loved commander. It seems he found the bodyright by the side of the little road that we had gone out on when we wentto the rear. He was dead when he found him, having been shot off hishorse, the bullet striking him in the back, just below his heart, probably killing him instantly. There was a young fellow with him whowas wounded also, when Strong found them. He belonged to our FirstDivision, and recognized General McPherson, and stood by him until MajorStrong came up. He was in the ambulance with the body of McPherson whenthey stopped by us. 

"It seems that when the fight opened away back in the rear where we hadbeen, and at the left of the Sixteenth Corps which was almost directly inthe rear of the Seventeenth Corps, McPherson sent his staff and orderlieswith various orders to different parts of the line, and started himselfto ride over from the Seventeenth Corps to the Sixteenth Corps, takingexactly the same course our Regiment had, perhaps an hour before, but theRebels had discovered there was a gap between the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Corps, and meeting no opposition to their advances in thisstrip of woods, where they were hidden from view, they had marched rightalong down in the rear, and with their line at right angles with the lineof works occupied by the left of the Seventeenth Corps; they were thusparallel and close to the little road McPherson had taken, and probablyhe rode right into them and was killed before he realized the truesituation. 

"Having piled our knapsacks, and left a couple of our older men, who wereplayed out with the heat and most ready to drop with sunstroke, to guardthem, we started on again. The ambulance with the corpse of Gen. McPherson moved off towards the right of the Army, which was the last weever saw of that brave and handsome soldier. 

"We bore off a little to the right of a large open field on top of a highhill where one of our batteries was pounding away at a tremendous rate. We came up to the main line of works just about at the left of theFifteenth Corps. They seemed to be having an easy time of it just then--no fighting going on in their front, except occasional shots from someheavy guns on the main line of Rebel works around the City. We crossedright over the Fifteenth Corps' works and filed to the left, keepingalong on the outside of our works. We had not gone far before the Rebelgunners in the main works around the City discovered us; and the way theydid tear loose at us was a caution. Their aim was rather bad, however, and most of their shots went over us. We saw one of them--I think it wasa shell--strike an artillery caisson belonging to one of our-batteries. It exploded as it struck, and then the caisson, which was full ofammunition, exploded with an awful noise, throwing pieces of wood andiron and its own load of shot and shell high into the air, scatteringdeath and destruction to the men and horses attached to it. We thoughtwe saw arms and legs and parts of bodies of men flying in everydirection; but we were glad to learn afterwards that it was the contentsof the knapsacks of the Battery boys, who had strapped them on thecaissons for transportation. 

"Just after passing the hill where our battery was making things solively, they stopped firing to let us pass. We saw General Leggett, ourDivision Commander, come riding toward us. He was outside of our line ofworks, too. You know how we build breastworks--sort of zigzag like, youknow, so they cannot be enfiladed. Well, that's just the way the workswere along there, and you never saw such a curious shape as we formed ourDivision in. Why, part of them were on one side of the works, and goalong a little further and here was a regiment, or part of a regiment onthe other side, both sets firing in opposite directions. 

"No sir'ee, they were not demoralized or in confusion, they were cool andas steady as on parade. But the old Division had, you know, never beendriven from any position they had once taken, in all their long service, and they did not propose to leave that ridge until they got orders fromsome one beside the Rebs. 

"There were times when a fellow did not know which side of the works wasthe safest, for the Johnnies were in front of us and in rear of us. You see, our Fourth Division, which had been to the left of us, had beenforced to quit their works, when the Rebs got into the works in theirrear, so that our Division was now at the point where our line turnedsharply to the left, and rear--in the direction of the Sixteenth Corps. 

"We got into business before we had been there over three minutes. A line of the Rebs tried to charge across the open fields in front of us, but by the help of the old twenty-four pounders (which proved to be partof Cooper's Illinois Battery, that we had been alongside of in many ahard fight before), we drove them back a-flying, only to have to jumpover on the outside of our works the next minute to tackle a heavy forcethat came for our rear through that blasted strip of woods. We soondrove them off, and the firing on both sides seemed to have pretty muchstopped. 

"'Our Brigade, ' which we discovered, was now commanded by 'Old Whiskers'(Colonel Piles, of the Seventy-Eighth Ohio. I'll bet he's got thelongest whiskers of any man in the Army. ) You see General Scott had notbeen seen or heard of since he had started to the rear after our regimentwhen the fighting first commenced. We all believed that he was eitherkilled or captured, or he would have been with his command. He was asplendid soldier, and a bull-dog of a fighter. His absence was a greatloss, but we had not much time to think of such things, for our brigadewas then ordered to leave the works and to move to the right about twentyor thirty rods across a large ravine, where we were placed in position inan open corn-field, forming a new line at quite an angle from the line ofworks we had just left, extending to the left, and getting us back neareronto a line with the Sixteenth Corps. The battery of howitzers, nowreinforced by a part of the Third Ohio heavy guns, still occupied the oldworks on the highest part of the hill, just to the right of our new line. We took our position just on the brow of a hill, and were ordered to liedown, and the rear rank to go for rails, which we discovered a few rodsbehind us in the shape of a good ten-rail fence. Every rear-rank chapcame back with all the rails he could lug, and we barely had time to laythem down in front of us, forming a little barricade of six to eight orten inches high, when we heard the most unearthly Rebel yell directly infront of us. It grew louder and came nearer and nearer, until we couldsee a solid line of the gray coats coming out of the woods and down theopposite slope, their battle flags flying, officers in front with drawnswords, arms at right shoulder, and every one of them yelling like somany Sioux Indians. The line seemed to be massed six or eight ranksdeep, followed closely by the second line, and that by the third, each, if possible, yelling louder and appearing more desperately reckless thanthe one ahead. At their first appearance we opened on them, and so didthe bully old twenty-four-pounders, with canister. 

"On they came; the first line staggered and wavered back on to thesecond, which was coming on the double quick. Such a raking as we didgive them. Oh, Lordy, how we did wish that we had the breech loadingSpencers or Winchesters. But we had the old reliable Springfields, andwe poured it in hot and heavy. By the time the charging column got downthe opposite slope, and were struggling through the thicket ofundergrowth in the ravine, they were one confused mass of officers andmen, the three lines now forming one solid column, which made severaldesperate efforts to rush up to the top of the hill where we werepunishing them so. One of their first surges came mighty near goingright over the left of our Regiment, as they were lying down behind theirlittle rail piles. But the boys clubbed their guns and the officers usedtheir revolvers and swords and drove them back down the hill. 

"The Seventy-Eighth and Twentieth Ohio, our right and left bowers, whohad been brigaded with us ever since 'Shiloh, ' were into it as hot andheavy as we had been, and had lost numbers of their officers and men, butwere hanging on to their little rail piles when the fight was over. At one time the Rebs were right in on top of the Seventy-Eighth. One bigReb grabbed their colors, and tried to pull them out of the hands of thecolor-bearer. But old Captain Orr, a little, short, dried-up fellow, about sixty years old, struck him with his sword across the back of theneck, and killed him deader than a mackerel, right in his tracks. 

"It was now getting dark, and the Johnnies concluded they had taken abigger contract in trying to drive us off that hill in one day than theyhad counted on, so they quit charging on us, but drew back under cover ofthe woods and along the old line of works that we had left, and kept up apecking away and sharp-shooting at us all night long. They opened fireon us from a number of pieces of artillery from the front, from the left, and from some heavy guns away over to the right of us, in the main worksaround Atlanta. 

"We did not fool away much time that night, either. We got our shovelsand picks, and while part of us were sharpshooting and trying to keep theRebels from working up too close to us, the rest of the boys were puttingup some good solid earthworks right where our rail piles had been, and bymorning we were in splendid shape to have received our friends, no matterwhich way they had come at us, for they kept up such an all-firedshelling of us from so many different directions; that the boys had builttraverses and bomb-proofs at all sorts of angles and in all directions. 

"There was one point off to our right, a few rods up along our old lineof works where there was a crowd of Rebel sharpshooters that annoyed usmore than all the rest, by their constant firing at us through the night. They killed one of Company H's boys, and wounded several others. FinallyCaptain Williams, of D Company, came along and said he wanted a couple ofgood shots out of our company to go with him, so I went for one. He tookabout ten of us, and we crawled down into the ravine in front of where wewere building the works, and got behind a large fallen tree, and we laidthere and could just fire right up into the rear of those fellows as theylay behind a traverse extending back from our old line of works. It wasso dark we could only see where to fire by the flash of guns, but everytime they would shoot, some of us would let them have one. They staidthere until almost daylight, when they, concluded as things looked, sincewe were going to stay, they had better be going. 

"It was an awful night. Down in the ravine below us lay hundreds ofkilled and wounded Rebels, groaning and crying aloud for water and forhelp. We did do what we could for those right around us--but it was sodark, and so many shell bursting and bullets flying around that a fellowcould not get about much. I tell you it was pretty tough next morning togo along to the different companies of our regiment and hear who wereamong the killed and wounded, and to see the long row of graves that werebeing dug to bury our comrades and our officers. There was the Captainof Company E, Nelson Skeeles, of Fulton County, O. , one of--the bravestand best officers in the regiment. By his side lay First SergeantLesnit, and next were the two great, powerful Shepherds--cousins but morelike brothers. One, it seems, was killed while supporting the head ofthe other, who had just received a death wound, thus dying in eachother's arms. 

"But I can't begin to think or tell you the names of all the poor boysthat we laid away to rest in their last, long sleep on that gloomy day. Our Major was severely wounded, and several other officers had been hitmore or less badly. 

"It was a frightful sight, though, to go over the field in front of ourworks on that morning. The Rebel dead and badly wounded laid where theyhad fallen. The bottom and opposite side of the ravine showed howdestructive our fire and that of the canister from the howitzers hadbeen. The underbrush was cut, slashed, and torn into shreds, and thelarger trees were scarred, bruised and broken by the thousands of bulletsand other missiles that had been poured into them from almost everyconceivable direction during the day before. 

"A lot of us boys went way over to the left into Fuller's Division of theSixteenth Corps, to see how some of our boys over there had got throughthe scrimmage, for they had about as nasty a fight as any part of theArmy, and if it had not been for their being just where they were, I amnot sure but what the old Seventeenth Corps would have had a differentstory to tell now. We found our friends had been way out by Decatur, where their brigade had got into a pretty lively fight on their own hook. 

"We got back to camp, and the first thing I knew I was detailed forpicket duty, and we were posted over a few rods across the ravine in ourfront. We had not been out but a short time when we saw a flag of truce, borne by an officer, coming towards us. We halted him, and made him waituntil a report was sent back to Corps headquarters. The Rebel officerwas quite chatty and talkative with our picket officer, while waiting. He said he was on General Cleburne's staff, and that the troops thatcharged us so fiercely the evening before was Cleburne's whole Division, and that after their last repulse, knowing the hill where we were postedwas the most important position along our line, he felt that if theywould keep close to us during the night, and keep up a show of fight, that we would pull out and abandon the hill before morning. He said thathe, with about fifty of their best men, had volunteered to keep up thedemonstration, and it was his party that had occupied the traverse in ourold works the night before and had annoyed us and the Battery men bytheir constant sharpshooting, which we fellows behind the old tree hadfinally tired out. He said they staid until almost daylight, and that helost more than half his men before he left. He also told us that GeneralScott was captured by their Division, at about the time and almost thesame spot as where General McPherson was killed, and that he was not hurtor wounded, and was now a prisoner in their hands. 

"Quite a lot of our staff officers soon came out, and as near as wecould learn the Rebels wanted a truce to bury their dead. Our folkstried to get up an exchange of prisoners that had been taken by bothsides the day before, but for some reason they could not bring it about. But the truce for burying the dead was agreed to. Along about dusk someof the boys on my post got to telling about a lot of silver and brassinstruments that belonged to one of the bands of the Fourth Division, which had been hung up in some small trees a little way over in front ofwhere we were when the fight was going on the day before, and that when, a bullet would strike one of the horns they could hear it go 'pin-g' andin a few minutes 'pan-g' would go another bullet through one of them. 

"A new picket was just coming' on, and I had picked up my blanket andhaversack, and was about ready to start back to camp, when, thinks I, 'I'll just go out there and see about them horns. ' I told the boys whatI was going to do. They all seemed to think it was safe enough, so out Istarted. I had not gone more than a hundred yards, I should think, whenhere I found the horns all hanging around on the trees just as the boyshad described. Some of them had lots of bullet holes in them. But I sawa beautiful, nice looking silver bugle hanging off to one side a little. 'I Thinks, ' says I, 'I'll just take that little toot horn in out of thewet, and take it back to camp. ' I was just reaching up after it when Iheard some one say, "'Halt!' and I'll be dog-Boned if there wasn't two of the meanest lookingRebels, standing not ten feet from me, with their guns cocked and pointedat me, and, of course, I knew I was a goner; they walked me back aboutone hundred and fifty yards, where their picket line was. From there Iwas kept going for an hour or two until we got over to a place on therailroad called East Point. There I got in with a big crowd of ourprisoners, who were taken the day before, and we have been fooling alongin a lot of old cattle cars getting down here ever since. 

"So this is 'Andersonville, ' is it! Well, by ---!"

CHAPTER XLI. 

CLOTHING: ITS RAPID DETERIORATION, AND DEVICES TO REPLENISH IT--DESPERATEEFFORTS TO COVER NAKEDNESS--"LITTLE RED CAP" AND HIS LETTER. 

Clothing had now become an object of real solicitude to us olderprisoners. The veterans of our crowd--the surviving remnant of thosecaptured at Gettysburg--had been prisoners over a year. The next inseniority--the Chickamauga boys--had been in ten months. The Mine Runfellows were eight months old, and my battalion had had seven months'incarceration. None of us were models of well-dressed gentlemen whencaptured. Our garments told the whole story of the hard campaigning wehad undergone. Now, with months of the wear and tear of prison life, sleeping on the sand, working in tunnels, digging wells, etc. , we weretattered and torn to an extent that a second-class tramp would haveconsidered disgraceful. 

This is no reflection upon the quality of the clothes furnished by theGovernment. We simply reached the limit of the wear of textile fabrics. I am particular to say this, because I want to contribute my little mitetowards doing justice to a badly abused part of our Army organization--the Quartermaster's Department. It is fashionable to speak of "shoddy, "and utter some stereotyped sneers about "brown paper shoes, " and"musketo-netting overcoats, " when any discussion of the Quartermasterservice is the subject of conversation, but I have no hesitation inasking the indorsement of my comrades to the statement that we have neverfound anywhere else as durable garments as those furnished us by theGovernment during our service in the Army. The clothes were not as finein texture, nor so stylish in cut as those we wore before or since, butwhen it came to wear they could be relied on to the last thread. It wasalways marvelous to me that they lasted so well, with the rough usage asoldier in the field must necessarily give them. 

But to return to my subject. I can best illustrate the way our clothesdropped off us, piece by piece, like the petals from the last rose ofSummer, by taking my own case as an example: When I entered prison I wasclad in the ordinary garb of an enlisted man of the cavalry--stout, comfortable boots, woolen pocks, drawers, pantaloons, with a"reenforcement, " or "ready-made patches, " as the infantry called them;vest, warm, snug-fitting jacket, under and over shirts, heavy overcoat, and a forage-cap. First my boots fell into cureless ruin, but this wasno special hardship, as the weather had become quite warm, and it wasmore pleasant than otherwise to go barefooted. Then part of theunderclothing retired from service. The jacket and vest followed, theirend being hastened by having their best portions taken to patch up thepantaloons, which kept giving out at the most embarrassing places. Thenthe cape of the overcoat was called upon to assist in repairing thesecontinually-recurring breaches in the nether garments. The sameinsatiate demand finally consumed the whole coat, in a vain attempt toprevent an exposure of person greater than consistent with the usages ofsociety. The pantaloons--or what, by courtesy, I called such, were amonument of careful and ingenious, but hopeless, patching, that shouldhave called forth the admiration of a Florentine artist in mosaic. I have been shown--in later years--many table tops, ornamented inmarquetry, inlaid with thousands of little bits of wood, cunninglyarranged, and patiently joined together. I always look at them withinterest, for I know the work spent upon them: I remember myAndersonville pantaloons. 

The clothing upon the upper part of my body had been reduced to theremains of a knit undershirt. It had fallen into so many holes that itlooked like the coarse "riddles" through which ashes and gravel aresifted. Wherever these holes were the sun had burned my back, breast andshoulders deeply black. The parts covered by the threads and fragmentsforming the boundaries of the holes, were still white. When I pulled myalleged shirt off, to wash or to free it from some of its teemingpopulation, my skin showed a fine lace pattern in black and white, thatwas very interesting to my comrades, and the subject of countless jokesby them. 

They used to descant loudly on the chaste elegance of the design, therichness of the tracing, etc. , and beg me to furnish them with a copy ofit when I got home, for their sisters to work window curtains or tidiesby. They were sure that so striking a novelty in patterns would be veryacceptable. I would reply to their witticisms in the language ofPortia's Prince of Morocco:

 Mislike me not for my complexion-- The shadowed livery of the burning sun. 

One of the stories told me in my childhood by an old negro nurse, was ofa poverty stricken little girl "who slept on the floor and was coveredwith the door, " and she once asked--

"Mamma how do poor folks get along who haven't any door?"

In the same spirit I used to wonder how poor fellows got along who hadn'tany shirt. 

One common way of keeping up one's clothing was by stealing mealsacks. The meal furnished as rations was brought in in white cotton sacks. Sergeants of detachments were required to return these when the rationswere issued the next day. I have before alluded to the generalincapacity of the Rebels to deal accurately with even simple numbers. It was never very difficult for a shrewd Sergeant to make nine sackscount as ten. After awhile the Rebels began to see through this sleightof hand manipulation, and to check it. Then the Sergeants resorted tothe device of tearing the sacks in two, and turning each half in as awhole one. The cotton cloth gained in this way was used for patching, or, if a boy could succeed in beating the Rebels out of enough of it, he would fabricate himself a shirt or a pair of pantaloons. We obtainedall our thread in the same way. A half of a sack, carefully raveled out, would furnish a couple of handfuls of thread. Had it not been for thisresource all our sewing and mending would have come to a standstill. 

Most of our needles were manufactured by ourselves from bones. A pieceof bone, split as near as possible to the required size, was carefullyrubbed down upon a brick, and then had an eye laboriously worked throughit with a bit of wire or something else available for the purpose. The needles were about the size of ordinary darning needles, and answeredthe purpose very well. 

These devices gave one some conception of the way savages provide for thewants of their lives. Time was with them, as with us, of littleimportance. It was no loss of time to them, nor to us, to spend a largeportion of the waking hours of a week in fabricating a needle out of abone, where a civilized man could purchase a much better one with theproduct of three minutes' labor. I do not think any red Indian of theplains exceeded us in the patience with which we worked away at theseminutia of life's needs. 

Of course the most common source of clothing was the dead, and no bodywas carried out with any clothing on it that could be of service to thesurvivors. The Plymouth Pilgrims, who were so well clothed on coming in, and were now dying off very rapidly, furnished many good suits to coverthe nakedness of older, prisoners. Most of the prisoners from the Armyof the Potomac were well dressed, and as very many died within a month orsix weeks after their entrance, they left their clothes in pretty goodcondition for those who constituted themselves their heirs, administrators and assigns. 

For my own part, I had the greatest aversion to wearing dead men'sclothes, and could only bring myself to it after I had been a year inprison, and it became a question between doing that and freezing todeath. 

Every new batch of prisoners was besieged with anxious inquiries on thesubject which lay closest to all our hearts:

"What are they doing about exchange!"

Nothing in human experience--save the anxious expectancy of a sail bycastaways on a desert island--could equal the intense eagerness withwhich this question was asked, and the answer awaited. To thousands nowhanging on the verge of eternity it meant life or death. Between thefirst day of July and the first of November over twelve thousand mendied, who would doubtless have lived had they been able to reach ourlines--"get to God's country, " as we expressed it. 

The new comers brought little reliable news of contemplated exchange. There was none to bring in the first place, and in the next, soldiers inactive service in the field had other things to busy themselves with thanreading up the details of the negotiations between the Commissioners ofExchange. They had all heard rumors, however, and by the time theyreached Andersonville, they had crystallized these into actual statementsof fact. A half hour after they entered the Stockade, a report like thiswould spread like wildfire:

"An Army of the Potomac man has just come in, who was captured in frontof Petersburg. He says that he read in the New York Herald, the daybefore he was taken, that an exchange had been agreed upon, and that ourships had already started for Savannah to take us home. "

Then our hopes would soar up like balloons. We fed ourselves on suchstuff from day to day, and doubtless many lives were greatly prolonged bythe continual encouragement. There was hardly a day when I did not sayto myself that I would much rather die than endure imprisonment anothermonth, and had I believed that another month would see me still there, I am pretty certain that I should have ended the matter by crossing theDead Line. I was firmly resolved not to die the disgusting, agonizingdeath that so many around me were dying. 

One of our best purveyors of information was a bright, blue-eyed, fair-haired little drummer boy, as handsome as a girl, well-bred as alady, and evidently the darling of some refined loving mother. Hebelonged, I think, to some loyal Virginia regiment, was captured in oneof the actions in the Shenandoa Valley, and had been with us inRichmond. We called him "Red Cap, " from his wearing a jaunty, gold-laced, crimson cap. Ordinarily, the smaller a drummer boy is theharder he is, but no amount of attrition with rough men could coarse theingrained refinement of Red Cap's manners. He was between thirteen andfourteen, and it seemed utterly shameful that men, calling themselvessoldier should make war on such a tender boy and drag him off to prison. 

But no six-footer had a more soldierly heart than little Red Cap, andnone were more loyal to the cause. It was a pleasure to hear him tellthe story of the fights and movements his regiment had been engaged in. He was a good observer and told his tale with boyish fervor. Shortlyafter Wirz assumed command he took Red Cap into his office as an Orderly. His bright face and winning manner; fascinated the women visitors atheadquarters, and numbers of them tried to adopt him, but with poorsuccess. Like the rest of us, he could see few charms in an existenceunder the Rebel flag, and turned a deaf ear to their blandishments. He kept his ears open to the conversation of the Rebel officers aroundhim, and frequently secured permission to visit the interior of theStockade, when he would communicate to us all that he has heard. He received a flattering reception every time he cams in, and no oratorever secured a more attentive audience than would gather around him tolisten to what he had to say. He was, beyond a doubt, the best known andmost popular person in the prison, and I know all the survivors of hisold admirer; share my great interest in him, and my curiosity as towhether he yet lives, and whether his subsequent career has justified thesanguine hopes we all had as to his future. I hope that if he sees this, or any one who knows anything about him, he will communicate with me. There are thousands who will be glad to hear from him. 

A most remarkable coincidence occurred in regard to this comrade. Several days after the above had been written, and "set up, " but beforeit had yet appeared in the paper, I received the following letter:

 ECKHART MINES, Alleghany County, Md. , March 24. 

To the Editor of the BLADE:

Last evening I saw a copy of your paper, in which was a chapter or two ofa prison life of a soldier during the late war. I was forcibly struckwith the correctness of what he wrote, and the names of several of my oldcomrades which he quoted: Hill, Limber Jim, etc. , etc. I was a drummerboy of Company I, Tenth West Virginia Infantry, and was fifteen years ofage a day or two after arriving in Andersonville, which was in the lastof February, 1884. Nineteen of my comrades were there with me, and, poorfellows, they are there yet. I have no doubt that I would have remainedthere, too, had I not been more fortunate. 

I do not know who your soldier correspondent is, but assume to say thatfrom the following description he will remember having seen me inAndersonville: I was the little boy that for three or four monthsofficiated as orderly for Captain Wirz. I wore a red cap, and every daycould be seen riding Wirz's gray mare, either at headquarters, or aboutthe Stockade. I was acting in this capacity when the six raiders--"Mosby, " (proper name Collins) Delaney, Curtis, and--I forget the othernames--were executed. I believe that I was the first that conveyed theintelligence to them that Confederate General Winder had approved theirsentence. As soon as Wirz received the dispatch to that effect, I randown to the stocks and told them. 

I visited Hill, of Wauseon, Fulton County, O. , since the war, and foundhim hale and hearty. I have not heard from him for a number of yearsuntil reading your correspondent's letter last evening. It is the onlyletter of the series that I have seen, but after reading that one, I feelcalled upon to certify that I have no doubts of the truthfulness of yourcorrespondent's story. The world will never know or believe the horrorsof Andersonville and other prisons in the South. No living, human being, in my judgment, will ever be able to properly paint the horrors of thoseinfernal dens. 

I formed the acquaintance of several Ohio soldiers whilst in prison. Among these were O. D. Streeter, of Cleveland, who went to Andersonvilleabout the same time that I did, and escaped, and was the only man that Iever knew that escaped and reached our lines. After an absence ofseveral months he was retaken in one of Sherman's battles before Atlanta, and brought back. I also knew John L. Richards, of Fostoria, SenecaCounty, O. Or Eaglesville, Wood County. Also, a man by the name ofBeverly, who was a partner of Charley Aucklebv, of Tennessee. I wouldlike to hear from all of these parties. They all know me. 

Mr. Editor, I will close by wishing all my comrades who shared in thesufferings and dangers of Confederate prisons, a long and useful life. Yours truly, RANSOM T. POWELL

CHAPTER XLII. 

SOME FEATURES OF THE MORTALITY--PERCENTAGE OF DEATHS TO THOSE LIVING--AN AVERAGE MEAN ONLY STANDS THE MISERY THREE MONTHS--DESCRIPTION OF THEPRISON AND THE CONDITION OF THE MEN THEREIN, BY A LEADING SCIENTIFIC MANOF THE SOUTH. 

Speaking of the manner in which the Plymouth Pilgrims were now dying, I am reminded of my theory that the ordinary man's endurance of thisprison life did not average over three months. The Plymouth boys arrivedin May; the bulk of those who died passed away in July and August. The great increase of prisoners from all sources was in May, June andJuly. The greatest mortality among these was in August, September andOctober. 

Many came in who had been in good health during their service in thefield, but who seemed utterly overwhelmed by the appalling misery theysaw on every hand, and giving way to despondency, died in a few days orweeks. I do not mean to include them in the above class, as theirsickness was more mental than physical. My idea is that, taking onehundred ordinarily healthful young soldiers from a regiment in activeservice, and putting them into Andersonville, by the end of the thirdmonth at least thirty-three of those weakest and most vulnerable todisease would have succumbed to the exposure, the pollution of ground andair, and the insufficiency of the ration of coarse corn meal. After thisthe mortality would be somewhat less, say at the end of six months fiftyof them would be dead. The remainder would hang on still moretenaciously, and at the end of a year there would be fifteen or twentystill alive. There were sixty-three of my company taken; thirteen livedthrough. I believe this was about the usual proportion for those whowere in as long as we. In all there were forty-five thousand six hundredand thirteen prisoners brought into Andersonville. Of these twelvethousand nine hundred and twelve died there, to say nothing of thousandsthat died in other prisons in Georgia and the Carolinas, immediatelyafter their removal from Andersonville. One of every three and a-halfmen upon whom the gates of the Stockade closed never repassed them alive. Twenty-nine per cent. Of the boys who so much as set foot inAndersonville died there. Let it be kept in mind all the time, that theaverage stay of a prisoner there was not four months. The great majoritycame in after the 1st of May, and left before the middle of September. May 1, 1864, there were ten thousand four hundred and twenty-seven in theStockade. August 8 there were thirty-three thousand one hundred andfourteen; September 30 all these were dead or gone, except eight thousandtwo hundred and eighteen, of whom four thousand five hundred and ninetydied inside of the next thirty days. The records of the world can shoveno parallel to this astounding mortality. 

Since the above matter was first published in the BLADE, a friend hassent me a transcript of the evidence at the Wirz trial, of ProfessorJoseph Jones, a Surgeon of high rank in the Rebel Army, and who stood atthe head of the medical profession in Georgia. He visited Andersonvilleat the instance of the Surgeon-General of the Confederate States' Army, to make a study, for the benefit of science, of the phenomena of diseaseoccurring there. His capacity and opportunities for observation, and forclearly estimating the value of the facts coming under his notice were, of course, vastly superior to mine, and as he states the case strongerthan I dare to, for fear of being accused of exaggeration and downrightuntruth, I reproduce the major part of his testimony--embodying also hisofficial report to medical headquarters at Richmond--that my readers mayknow how the prison appeared to the eyes of one who, though a bitterRebel, was still a humane man and a conscientious observer, striving tolearn the truth:

 MEDICAL TESTIMONY. 

[Transcript from the printed testimony at the Wirz Trial, pages 618 to639, inclusive. ]

 OCTOBER 7, 1885. 

Dr. Joseph Jones, for the prosecution:

By the Judge Advocate:

Question. Where do you reside

Answer. In Augusta, Georgia. 

Q. Are you a graduate of any medical college?

A. Of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Q. How long have you been engaged in the practice of medicine?

A. Eight years. 

Q. Has your experience been as a practitioner, or rather as aninvestigator of medicine as a science?

A. Both. 

Q. What position do you hold now?

A. That of Medical Chemist in the Medical College of Georgia, atAugusta. 

Q. How long have you held your position in that college?

A. Since 1858. 

Q. How were you employed during the Rebellion?

A. I served six months in the early part of it as a private in theranks, and the rest of the time in the medical department. 

Q. Under the direction of whom?

A. Under the direction of Dr. Moore, Surgeon General. 

Q. Did you, while acting under his direction, visit Andersonville, professionally?

A. Yes, Sir. 

Q. For the purpose of making investigations there?

A. For the purpose of prosecuting investigations ordered by the SurgeonGeneral. 

Q. You went there in obedience to a letter of instructions?

A. In obedience to orders which I received. 

Q. Did you reduce the results of your investigations to the shape of areport?

A. I was engaged at that work when General Johnston surrendered hisarmy. 

(A document being handed to witness. )

Q. Have you examined this extract from your report and compared it withthe original?

A. Yes, Sir; I have. 

Q. Is it accurate?

A. So far as my examination extended, it is accurate. '

The document just examined by witness was offered in evidence, and is asfollows:

Observations upon the diseases of the Federal prisoners, confined to CampSumter, Andersonville, in Sumter County, Georgia, instituted with a viewto illustrate chiefly the origin and causes of hospital gangrene, therelations of continued and malarial fevers, and the pathology of campdiarrhea and dysentery, by Joseph Jones; Surgeon P. A. C. S. , Professorof Medical Chemistry in the Medical College of Georgia, at Augusta, Georgia. 

Hearing of the unusual mortality among the Federal prisoners confined atAndersonville; Georgia, in the month of August, 1864, during a visit toRichmond, Va. , I expressed to the Surgeon General, S. P. Moore, Confederate States of America, a desire to visit Camp Sumter, with thedesign of instituting a series of inquiries upon the nature and causes ofthe prevailing diseases. Smallpox had appeared among the prisoners, andI believed that this would prove an admirable field for the establishmentof its characteristic lesions. The condition of Peyer's glands in thisdisease was considered as worthy of minute investigation. It wasbelieved that a large body of men from the Northern portion of the UnitedStates, suddenly transported to a warm Southern climate, and confinedupon a small portion of land, would furnish an excellent field for theinvestigation of the relations of typhus, typhoid, and malarial fevers. 

The Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America furnished mewith the following letter of introduction to the Surgeon in charge of theConfederate States Military Prison at Andersonville, Ga. :

 CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE, RICHMOND, VA. , August 6, 1864. 

SIR:--The field of pathological investigations afforded by the largecollection of Federal prisoners in Georgia, is of great extant andimportance, and it is believed that results of value to the professionmay be obtained by careful investigation of the effects of disease uponthe large body of men subjected to a decided change of climate and thosecircumstances peculiar to prison life. The Surgeon in charge of thehospital for Federal prisoners, together with his assistants, will affordevery facility to Surgeon Joseph Jones, in the prosecution of the laborsordered by the Surgeon General. Efficient assistance must be renderedSurgeon Jones by the medical officers, not only in his examinations intothe causes and symptoms of the various diseases, but especially in thearduous labors of post mortem examinations. 

The medical officers will assist in the performance of such post-mortemsas Surgeon Jones may indicate, in order that this great field forpathological investigation may be explored for the benefit of the MedicalDepartment of the Confederate Army. S. P. MOORE, Surgeon General. Surgeon ISAIAH H. WHITE, In charge of Hospital for Federal prisoners, Andersonville, Ga. 

In compliance with this letter of the Surgeon General, Isaiah H. White, Chief Surgeon of the post, and R. R. Stevenson, Surgeon in charge of thePrison Hospital, afforded the necessary facilities for the prosecution ofmy investigations among the sick outside of the Stockade. After thecompletion of my labors in the military prison hospital, the followingcommunication was addressed to Brigadier General John H. Winder, inconsequence of the refusal on the part of the commandant of the interiorof the Confederate States Military Prison to admit me within the Stockadeupon the order of the Surgeon General:

 CAMP SUMTER, ANDERSONVILLE GA. , September 16, 1864. 

GENERAL:--I respectfully request the commandant of the post ofAndersonville to grant me permission and to furnish the necessary passto visit the sick and medical officers within the Stockade of theConfederate States Prison. I desire to institute certain inquiriesordered by the Surgeon General. Surgeon Isaiah H. White, Chief Surgeonof the post, and Surgeon R. R. Stevenson, in charge of the PrisonHospital, have afforded me every facility for the prosecution of mylabors among the sick outside of the Stockade. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, JOSEPH JONES, Surgeon P. A. C. S. 

Brigadier General JOHN H. WINDER, Commandant, Post Andersonville. 

In the absence of General Winder from the post, Captain Winder furnishedthe following order:

 CAMP SUMTER, ANDERSONVILLE; September 17, 1864. 

CAPTAIN:--You will permit Surgeon Joseph Jones, who has orders from theSurgeon General, to visit the sick within the Stockade that are undermedical treatment. Surgeon Jones is ordered to make certaininvestigations which may prove useful to his profession. By direction ofGeneral Winder. Very respectfully, W. S. WINDER, A. A. G. 

Captain H. WIRZ, Commanding Prison. 

 Description of the Confederate States Military Prison Hospital at Andersonville. Number of prisoners, physical condition, food, clothing, habits, moral condition, diseases. 

The Confederate Military Prison at Andersonville, Ga. , consists of astrong Stockade, twenty feet in height, enclosing twenty-seven acres. The Stockade is formed of strong pine logs, firmly planted in the ground. The main Stockade is surrounded by two other similar rows of pine logs, the middle Stockade being sixteen feet high, and the outer twelve feet. These are intended for offense and defense. If the inner Stockade shouldat any time be forced by the prisoners, the second forms another line ofdefense; while in case of an attempt to deliver the prisoners by a forceoperating upon the exterior, the outer line forms an admirable protectionto the Confederate troops, and a most formidable obstacle to cavalry orinfantry. The four angles of the outer line are strengthened byearthworks upon commanding eminences, from which the cannon, in case ofan outbreak among the prisoners, may sweep the entire enclosure; and itwas designed to connect these works by a line of rifle pits, runningzig-zag, around the outer Stockade; those rifle pits have never beencompleted. The ground enclosed by the innermost Stockade lies in theform of a parallelogram, the larger diameter running almost due north andsouth. This space includes the northern and southern opposing sides oftwo hills, between which a stream of water runs from west to east. The surface soil of these hills is composed chiefly of sand with varyingadmixtures of clay and oxide of iron. The clay is sufficiently tenaciousto give a considerable degree of consistency to the soil. The internalstructure of the hills, as revealed by the deep wells, is similar to thatalready described. The alternate layers of clay and sand, as well as theoxide of iron, which forms in its various combinations a cement to thesand, allow of extensive tunneling. The prisoners not only constructednumerous dirt huts with balls of clay and sand, taken from the wellswhich they have excavated all over those hills, but they have also, insome cases, tunneled extensively from these wells. The lower portions ofthese hills, bordering on the stream, are wet and boggy from the constantoozing of water. The Stockade was built originally to accommodate onlyten thousand prisoners, and included at first seventeen acres. Near theclose of the month of June the area was enlarged by the addition of tenacres. The ground added was situated on the northern slope of thelargest hill. 

The average number of square feet of ground to each prisoner in August1864: 35. 7

Within the circumscribed area of the Stockade the Federal prisoners werecompelled to perform all the offices of life--cooking, washing, the callsof nature, exercise, and sleeping. During the month of March the prisonwas less crowded than at any subsequent time, and then the average spaceof ground to each prisoner was only 98. 7 feet, or less than seven squareyards. The Federal prisoners were gathered from all parts of theConfederate States east of the Mississippi, and crowded into the confinedspace, until in the month of June the average number of square feet ofground to each prisoner was only 33. 2 or less than four square yards. These figures represent the condition of the Stockade in a better lighteven than it really was; for a considerable breadth of land along thestream, flowing from west to east between the hills, was low and boggy, and was covered with the excrement of the men, and thus rendered whollyuninhabitable, and in fact useless for every purpose except that ofdefecation. The pines and other small trees and shrubs, which originallywere scattered sparsely over these hills, were in a short time cut downand consumed by the prisoners for firewood, and no shade tree was left inthe entire enclosure of the stockade. With their characteristic industryand ingenuity, the Federals constructed for themselves small huts andcaves, and attempted to shield themselves from the rain and sun and nightdamps and dew. But few tents were distributed to the prisoners, and those were in most cases torn and rotten. In the location andarrangement of these tents and huts no order appears to have beenfollowed; in fact, regular streets appear to be out of the question in socrowded an area; especially too, as large bodies of prisoners were fromtime to time added suddenly without any previous preparations. The irregular arrangement of the huts and imperfect shelters was veryunfavorable for the maintenance of a proper system of police. 

The police and internal economy of the prison was left almost entirely inthe hands of the prisoners themselves; the duties of the Confederatesoldiers acting as guards being limited to the occupation of the boxesor lookouts ranged around the stockade at regular intervals, and to themanning of the batteries at the angles of the prison. Even judicialmatters pertaining to themselves, as the detection and punishment of suchcrimes as theft and murder appear to have been in a great measureabandoned to the prisoners. A striking instance of this occurred in themonth of July, when the Federal prisoners within the Stockade tried, condemned, and hanged six (6) of their own number, who had been convictedof stealing and of robbing and murdering their fellow-prisoners. Theywere all hung upon the same day, and thousands of the prisoners gatheredaround to witness the execution. The Confederate authorities are saidnot to have interfered with these proceedings. In this collection of menfrom all parts of the world, every phase of human character wasrepresented; the stronger preyed upon the weaker, and even the sick whowere unable to defend themselves were robbed of their scanty supplies offood and clothing. Dark stories were afloat, of men, both sick and well, who were murdered at night, strangled to death by their comrades forscant supplies of clothing or money. I heard a sick and wounded Federalprisoner accuse his nurse, a fellow-prisoner of the United States Army, of having stealthily, during his sleep inoculated his wounded arm withgangrene, that he might destroy his life and fall heir to his clothing. 

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

The large number of men confined within the Stockade soon, under adefective system of police, and with imperfect arrangements, covered thesurface of the low grounds with excrements. The sinks over the lowerportions of the stream were imperfect in their plan and structure, andthe excrements were in large measure deposited so near the borders of thestream as not to be washed away, or else accumulated upon the low boggyground. The volume of water was not sufficient to wash away the feces, and they accumulated in such quantities in the lower portion of thestream as to form a mass of liquid excrement heavy rains caused the waterof the stream to rise, and as the arrangements for the passage of theincreased amounts of water out of the Stockade were insufficient, theliquid feces overflowed the low grounds and covered them several inches, after the subsidence of the waters. The action of the sun upon thisputrefying mass of excrements and fragments of bread and meat and bonesexcited most rapid fermentation and developed a horrible stench. Improvements were projected for the removal of the filth and for theprevention of its accumulation, but they were only partially andimperfectly carried out. As the forces of the prisoners were reduced byconfinement, want of exercise, improper diet, and by scurvy, diarrhea, and dysentery, they were unable to evacuate their bowels within thestream or along its banks, and the excrements were deposited at the verydoors of their tents. The vast majority appeared to lose all repulsionto filth, and both sick and well disregarded all the laws of hygiene andpersonal cleanliness. The accommodations for the sick were imperfect andinsufficient. From the organization of the prison, February 24, 1864, toMay 22, the sick were treated within the Stockade. In the crowdedcondition of the Stockade, and with the tents and huts clustered thicklyaround the hospital, it was impossible to secure proper ventilation or tomaintain the necessary police. The Federal prisoners also made frequentforays upon the hospital stores and carried off the food and clothing ofthe sick. The hospital was, on the 22d of May, removed to its presentsite without the Stockade, and five acres of ground covered with oaks andpines appropriated to the use of the sick. 

The supply of medical officers has been insufficient from the foundationof the prison. 

The nurses and attendants upon the sick have been most generally Federalprisoners, who in too many cases appear to have been devoid of moralprinciple, and who not only neglected their duties, but were also engagedin extensive robbing of the sick. 

From the want of proper police and hygienic regulations alone it is notwonderful that from February 24 to September 21, 1864, nine thousand fourhundred and seventy-nine deaths, nearly one-third the entire number ofprisoners, should have been recorded. I found the Stockade and hospitalin the following condition during my pathological investigations, instituted in the month of September, 1864:

 STOCKADE, CONFEDERATE STATES MILITARY PRISON. 

At the time of my visit to Andersonville a large number of Federalprisoners had been removed to Millen, Savannah; Charleston, and otherparts of, the Confederacy, in anticipation of an advance of GeneralSherman's forces from Atlanta, with the design of liberating theircaptive brethren; however, about fifteen thousand prisoners remainedconfined within the limits of the Stockade and Confederate StatesMilitary Prison Hospital. 

In the Stockade, with the exception of the damp lowlands bordering thesmall stream, the surface was covered with huts, and small ragged tentsand parts of blankets and fragments of oil-cloth, coats, and blanketsstretched upon stacks. The tents and huts were not arranged according toany order, and there was in most parts of the enclosure scarcely room fortwo men to walk abreast between the tents and huts. 

If one might judge from the large pieces of corn-bread scattered about inevery direction on the ground the prisoners were either very lavishlysupplied with this article of diet, or else this kind of food was notrelished by them. 

Each day the dead from the Stockade were carried out by theirfellow-prisoners and deposited upon the ground under a bush arbor, justoutside of the Southwestern Gate. From thence they were carried incarts to the burying ground, one-quarter of a mile northwest, of thePrison. The dead were buried without coffins, side by side, in trenchesfour feet deep. 

The low grounds bordering the stream were covered with human excrementsand filth of all kinds, which in many places appeared to be alive withworking maggots. An indescribable sickening stench arose from thesefermenting masses of human filth. 

There were near five thousand seriously ill Federals in the Stockade andConfederate States Military Prison Hospital, and the deaths exceeded onehundred per day, and large numbers of the prisoners who were walkingabout, and who had not been entered upon the sick reports, were sufferingfrom severe and incurable diarrhea, dysentery, and scurvy. The sick wereattended almost entirely by their fellow-prisoners, appointed as nurses, and as they received but little attention, they were compelled to exertthemselves at all times to attend to the calls of nature, and hence theyretained the power of moving about to within a comparatively short periodof the close of life. Owing to the slow progress of the diseases mostprevalent, diarrhea, and chronic dysentery, the corpses were as a generalrule emaciated. 

I visited two thousand sick within the Stockade, lying under some longsheds which had been built at the northern portion for themselves. Atthis time only one medical officer was in attendance, whereas at leasttwenty medical officers should have been employed. 

Died in the Stockade from its organization, February 24, 186l toSeptember 2l .................................................... 3, 254Died in Hospital during same time ............................... 6, 225

Total deaths in Hospital and Stockade ........................... 9, 479

Scurvy, diarrhea, dysentery, and hospital gangrene were the prevailingdiseases. I was surprised to find but few cases of malarial fever, andno well-marked cases either of typhus or typhoid fever. The absence ofthe different forms of malarial fever may be accounted for in thesupposition that the artificial atmosphere of the Stockade, crowdeddensely with human beings and loaded with animal exhalations, was unfavorable to the existence and action of the malarial poison. The absence of typhoid and typhus fevers amongst all the causes which aresupposed to generate these diseases, appeared to be due to the fact thatthe great majority of these prisoners had been in captivity in Virginia, at Belle Island, and in other parts of the Confederacy for months, andeven as long as two years, and during this time they had been subjectedto the same bad influences, and those who had not had these fevers beforeeither had them during their confinement in Confederate prisons or elsetheir systems, from long exposure, were proof against their action. 

The effects of scurvy were manifested on every hand, and in all itsvarious stages, from the muddy, pale complexion, pale gums, feeble, languid muscular motions, lowness of spirits, and fetid breath, to thedusky, dirty, leaden complexion, swollen features, spongy, purple, livid, fungoid, bleeding gums, loose teeth, oedematous limbs, covered with lividvibices, and petechiae spasmodically flexed, painful and hardenedextremities, spontaneous hemorrhages from mucous canals, and large, ill-conditioned, spreading ulcers covered with a dark purplish fungusgrowth. I observed that in some of the cases of scurvy the parotidglands were greatly swollen, and in some instances to such an extent asto preclude entirely the power to articulate. In several cases ofdropsy of the abdomen and lower extremities supervening upon scurvy, thepatients affirmed that previously to the appearance of the dropsy theyhad suffered with profuse and obstinate diarrhea, and that when this waschecked by a change of diet, from Indian corn-bread baked with the husk, to boiled rice, the dropsy appeared. The severe pains and livid patcheswere frequently associated with swellings in various parts, andespecially in the lower extremities, accompanied with stiffness andcontractions of the knee joints and ankles, and often with a brawny feelof the parts, as if lymph had been effused between the integuments andapeneuroses, preventing the motion of the skin over the swollen parts. Many of the prisoners believed that the scurvy was contagious, and I sawmen guarding their wells and springs, fearing lest some man sufferingwith the scurvy might use the water and thus poison them. 

I observed also numerous cases of hospital gangrene, and of spreadingscorbutic ulcers, which had supervened upon slight injuries. Thescorbutic ulcers presented a dark, purple fungoid, elevated surface, withlivid swollen edges, and exuded a thin; fetid, sanious fluid, instead ofpus. Many ulcers which originated from the scorbutic condition of thesystem appeared to become truly gangrenous, assuming all thecharacteristics of hospital gangrene. From the crowded condition, filthyhabits, bad diet, and dejected, depressed condition of the prisoners, their systems had become so disordered that the smallest abrasion of theskin, from the rubbing of a shoe, or from the effects of the sun, or fromthe prick of a splinter, or from scratching, or a musketo bite, in somecases, took on rapid and frightful ulceration and gangrene. The long useof salt meat, ofttimes imperfectly cured, as well as the most totaldeprivation of vegetables and fruit, appeared to be the chief causes ofthe scurvy. I carefully examined the bakery and the bread furnished theprisoners, and found that they were supplied almost entirely withcorn-bread from which the husk had not been separated. This husk actedas an irritant to the alimentary canal, without adding any nutriment tothe bread. As far as my examination extended no fault could be foundwith the mode in which the bread was baked; the difficulty lay in thefailure to separate the husk from the corn-meal. I strongly urged thepreparation of large quantities of soup made from the cow and calves'heads with the brains and tongues, to which a liberal supply of sweetpotatos and vegetables might have been advantageously added. Thematerial existed in abundance for the preparation of such soup in largequantities with but little additional expense. Such aliment would havebeen not only highly nutritious, but it would also have acted as anefficient remedial agent for the removal of the scorbutic condition. Thesick within the Stockade lay under several long sheds which wereoriginally built for barracks. These sheds covered two floors whichwere open on all sides. The sick lay upon the bare boards, or upon suchragged blankets as they possessed, without, as far as I observed, anybedding or even straw. 

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

The haggard, distressed countenances of these miserable, complaining, dejected, living skeletons, crying for medical aid and food, and cursingtheir Government for its refusal to exchange prisoners, and the ghastlycorpses, with their glazed eye balls staring up into vacant space, withthe flies swarming down their open and grinning mouths, and over theirragged clothes, infested with numerous lice, as they lay amongst the sickand dying, formed a picture of helpless, hopeless misery which it wouldbe impossible to portray bywords or by the brush. A feeling ofdisappointment and even resentment on account of the United StatesGovernment upon the subject of the exchange of prisoners, appeared to bewidespread, and the apparent hopeless nature of the negotiations for somegeneral exchange of prisoners appeared to be a cause of universal regretand deep and injurious despondency. I heard some of the prisoners go sofar as to exonerate the Confederate Government from any charge ofintentionally subjecting them to a protracted confinement, with itsnecessary and unavoidable sufferings, in a country cut off from allintercourse with foreign nations, and sorely pressed on all sides, whilston the other hand they charged their prolonged captivity upon their ownGovernment, which was attempting to make the negro equal to the whiteman. Some hundred or more of the prisoners had been released fromconfinement in the Stockade on parole, and filled various offices asclerks, druggists, and carpenters, etc. , in the various departments. These men were well clothed, and presented a stout and healthyappearance, and as a general rule they presented a much more robust andhealthy appearance than the Confederate troops guarding the prisoners. 

The entire grounds are surrounded by a frail board fence, and arestrictly guarded by Confederate soldiers, and no prisoner except theparoled attendants is allowed to leave the grounds except by a specialpermit from the Commandant of the Interior of the Prison. 

The patients and attendants, near two thousand in number, are crowdedinto this confined space and are but poorly supplied with old and raggedtents. Large numbers of them were without any bunks in the tents, andlay upon the ground, oft-times without even a blanket. No beds or strawappeared to have been furnished. The tents extend to within a few yardsof the small stream, the eastern portion of which, as we have beforesaid, is used as a privy and is loaded with excrements; and I observed alarge pile of corn-bread, bones, and filth of all kinds, thirty feet indiameter and several feet in hight, swarming with myriads of flies, in avacant space near the pots used for cooking. Millions of flies swarmedover everything, and covered the faces of the sleeping patients, andcrawled down their open mouths, and deposited their maggots in thegangrenous wounds of the living, and in the mouths of the dead. Musketosin great numbers also infested the tents, and many of the patients wereso stung by these pestiferous insects, that they resembled thosesuffering from a slight attack of the measles. 

The police and hygiene of the hospital were defective in the extreme;the attendants, who appeared in almost every instance to have beenselected from the prisoners, seemed to have in many cases but littleinterest in the welfare of their fellow-captives. The accusation wasmade that the nurses in many cases robbed the sick of their clothing, money, and rations, and carried on a clandestine trade with the paroledprisoners and Confederate guards without the hospital enclosure, in theclothing, effects of the sick, dying, and dead Federals. They certainlyappeared to neglect the comfort and cleanliness of the sick intrusted totheir care in a most shameful manner, even after making due allowancesfor the difficulties of the situation. Many of the sick were literallyencrusted with dirt and filth and covered with vermin. When a gangrenouswound needed washing, the limb was thrust out a little from the blanket, or board, or rags upon which the patient was lying, and water poured overit, and all the putrescent matter allowed to soak into the ground floorof the tent. The supply of rags for dressing wounds was said to be veryscant, and I saw the most filthy rags which had been applied severaltimes, and imperfectly washed, used in dressing wounds. Where hospitalgangrene was prevailing, it was impossible for any wound to escapecontagion under these circumstances. The results of the treatment ofwounds in the hospital were of the most unsatisfactory character, fromthis neglect of cleanliness, in the dressings and wounds themselves, aswell as from various other causes which will be more fully considered. I saw several gangrenous wounds filled with maggots. I have frequentlyseen neglected wounds amongst the Confederate soldiers similarlyaffected; and as far as my experience extends, these worms destroy onlythe dead tissues and do not injure specially the well parts. I have evenheard surgeons affirm that a gangrenous wound which had been thoroughlycleansed by maggots, healed more rapidly than if it had been left toitself. This want of cleanliness on the part of the nurses appeared tobe the result of carelessness and inattention, rather than of malignantdesign, and the whole trouble can be traced to the want of the properpolice and sanitary regulations, and to the absence of intelligentorganization and division of labor. The abuses were in a large measuredue to the almost total absence of system, government, and rigid, butwholesome sanitary regulations. In extenuation of these abuses it wasalleged by the medical officers that the Confederate troops were barelysufficient to guard the prisoners, and that it was impossible to obtainany number of experienced nurses from the Confederate forces. In factthe guard appeared to be too small, even for the regulation of theinternal hygiene and police of the hospital. 

The manner of disposing of the dead was also calculated to depress thealready desponding spirits of these men, many of whom have been confinedfor months, and even for nearly two years in Richmond and other places, and whose strength had been wasted by bad air, bad food, and neglect ofpersonal cleanliness. The dead-house is merely a frame covered with oldtent cloth and a few bushes, situated in the southwestern corner of thehospital grounds. When a patient dies, he is simply laid in the narrowstreet in front of his tent, until he is removed by Federal negrosdetailed to carry off the dead; if a patient dies during the night, helies there until the morning, and during the day even the dead werefrequently allowed to remain for hours in these walks. In the dead-housethe corpses lie upon the bare ground, and were in most cases covered withfilth and vermin. 

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

The cooking arrangements are of the most defective character. Five largeiron pots similar to those used for boiling sugar cane, appeared to bethe only cooking utensils furnished by the hospital for the cooking ofnearly two thousand men; and the patients were dependent in great measureupon their own miserable utensils. They were allowed to cook in the tentdoors and in the lanes, and this was another source of filth, and anotherfavorable condition for the generation and multiplication of flies andother vermin. 

The air of the tents was foul and disagreeable in the extreme, and infact the entire grounds emitted a most nauseous and disgusting smell. I entered nearly all the tents and carefully examined the cases ofinterest, and especially the cases of gangrene, upon numerous occasions, during the prosecution of my pathological inquiries at Andersonville, andtherefore enjoyed every opportunity to judge correctly of the hygiene andpolice of the hospital. 

There appeared to be almost absolute indifference and neglect on the partof the patients of personal cleanliness; their persons and clothinginmost instances, and especially of those suffering with gangrene andscorbutic ulcers, were filthy in the extreme and covered with vermin. It was too often the case that patients were received from the Stockadein a most deplorable condition. I have seen men brought in from theStockade in a dying condition, begrimed from head to foot with their ownexcrements, and so black from smoke and filth that they, resembled negrosrather than white men. That this description of the Stockade andhospital has not been overdrawn, will appear from the reports of thesurgeons in charge, appended to this report. 

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

We will examine first the consolidated report of the sick and woundedFederal prisoners. During six months, from the 1st of March to the 31stof August, forty-two thousand six hundred and eighty-six cases ofdiseases and wounds were reported. No classified record of the sick inthe Stockade was kept after the establishment of the hospital without thePrison. This fact, in conjunction with those already presented relatingto the insufficiency of medical officers and the extreme illness and evendeath of many prisoners in the tents in the Stockade, without any medicalattention or record beyond the bare number of the dead, demonstrate thatthese figures, large as they, appear to be, are far below the truth. 

As the number of prisoners varied greatly at different periods, therelations between those reported sick and well, as far as thosestatistics extend, can best be determined by a comparison of thestatistics of each month. 

During this period of six months no less than five hundred and sixty-fivedeaths are recorded under the head of 'morbi vanie. ' In other words, those men died without having received sufficient medical attention forthe determination of even the name of the disease causing death. 

During the month of August fifty-three cases and fifty-three deaths arerecorded as due to marasmus. Surely this large number of deaths musthave been due to some other morbid state than slow wasting. If they weredue to improper and insufficient food, they should have been classedaccordingly, and if to diarrhea or dysentery or scurvy, theclassification should in like manner have been explicit. 

We observe a progressive increase of the rate of mortality, from 3. 11 percent. In March to 9. 09 per cent. Of mean strength, sick and well, inAugust. The ratio of mortality continued to increase during September, for notwithstanding the removal of one-half of the entire number ofprisoners during the early portion of the month, one thousand sevenhundred and sixty-seven (1, 767) deaths are registered from September 1 to21, and the largest number of deaths upon any one day occurred duringthis month, on the 16th, viz. One hundred and nineteen. 

The entire number of Federal prisoners confined at Andersonville wasabout forty thousand six hundred and eleven; and during the period ofnear seven months, from February 24 to September 21, nine thousand fourhundred and seventy-nine (9, 479) deaths were recorded; that is, duringthis period near one-fourth, or more, exactly one in 4. 2, or 13. 3 percent. , terminated fatally. This increase of mortality was due in greatmeasure to the accumulation of the sources of disease, as the increase ofexcrements and filth of all kinds, and the concentration of noxiouseffluvia, and also to the progressive effects of salt diet, crowding, andthe hot climate. 

 CONCLUSIONS. 

1st. The great mortality among the Federal prisoners confined in themilitary prison at Andersonville was not referable to climatic causes, orto the nature of the soil and waters. 

2d. The chief causes of death were scurvy and its results and bowelaffections-chronic and acute diarrhea and dysentery. The bowelaffections appear to have been due to the diet, the habits of thepatients, the depressed, dejected state of the nervous system and moraland intellectual powers, and to the effluvia arising from the decomposinganimal and vegetable filth. The effects of salt meat, and an unvaryingdiet of cornmeal, with but few vegetables, and imperfect supplies ofvinegar and syrup, were manifested in the great prevalence of scurvy. This disease, without doubt, was also influenced to an important extentin its origin and course by the foul animal emanations. 

3d. From the sameness of the food and form, the action of the poisonousgases in the densely crowded and filthy Stockade and hospital, the bloodwas altered in its constitution, even before the manifestation of actualdisease. In both the well and the sick the red corpuscles werediminished; and in all diseases uncomplicated with inflammation, the fibrous element was deficient. In cases of ulceration of the mucousmembrane of the intestinal canal, the fibrous element of the blood wasincreased; while in simple diarrhea, uncomplicated with ulceration, it was either diminished or else remained stationary. Heart clots werevery common, if not universally present, in cases of ulceration of theintestinal mucous membrane, while in the uncomplicated cases of diarrheaand scurvy, the blood was fluid and did not coagulate readily, and theheart clots and fibrous concretions were almost universally absent. From the watery condition of the blood, there resulted various serouseffusions into the pericardium, ventricles of the brain, and into theabdomen. In almost all the cases which I examined after death, even themost emaciated, there was more or less serous effusion into the abdominalcavity. In cases of hospital gangrene of the extremities, and in casesof gangrene of the intestines, heart clots and fibrous coagula wereuniversally present. The presence of those clots in the cases ofhospital gangrene, while they were absent in the cases in which there wasno inflammatory symptoms, sustains the conclusion that hospital gangreneis a species of inflammation, imperfect and irregular though it may be inits progress, in which the fibrous element and coagulation of the bloodare increased, even in those who are suffering from such a condition ofthe blood, and from such diseases as are naturally accompanied with adecrease in the fibrous constituent. 

4th. The fact that hospital Gangrene appeared in the Stockade first, andoriginated spontaneously without any previous contagion, and occurredsporadically all over the Stockade and prison hospital, was proofpositive that this disease will arise whenever the conditions ofcrowding, filth, foul air, and bad diet are present. The exhalationsfrom the hospital and Stockade appeared to exert their effects to aconsiderable distance outside of these localities. The origin ofhospital gangrene among these prisoners appeared clearly to depend ingreat measure upon the state of the general system induced by diet, andvarious external noxious influences. The rapidity of the appearance andaction of the gangrene depended upon the powers and state of theconstitution, as well as upon the intensity of the poison in theatmosphere, or upon the direct application of poisonous matter to thewounded surface. This was further illustrated by the important fact thathospital gangrene, or a disease resembling it in all essential respects, attacked the intestinal canal of patients laboring under ulceration ofthe bowels, although there were no local manifestations of gangrene uponthe surface of the body. This mode of termination in cases of dysenterywas quite common in the foul atmosphere of the Confederate StatesMilitary Hospital, in the depressed, depraved condition of the system ofthese Federal prisoners. 

5th. A scorbutic condition of the system appeared to favor the origin offoul ulcers, which frequently took on true hospital gangrene. Scurvy andhospital gangrene frequently existed in the same individual. In suchcases, vegetable diet, with vegetable acids, would remove the scorbuticcondition without curing the hospital gangrene. From the results of theexisting war for the establishment of the independence of the ConfederateStates, as well as from the published observations of Dr. Trotter, SirGilbert Blane, and others of the English navy and army, it is evidentthat the scorbutic condition of the system, especially in crowded shipsand camps, is most favorable to the origin and spread of foul ulcers andhospital gangrene. As in the present case of Andersonville, so also inpast times when medical hygiene was almost entirely neglected, those twodiseases were almost universally associated in crowded ships. In manycases it was very difficult to decide at first whether the ulcer was asimple result of scurvy or of the action of the prison or hospitalgangrene, for there was great similarity in the appearance of the ulcersin the two diseases. So commonly have those two diseases been combinedin their origin and action, that the description of scorbutic ulcers, bymany authors, evidently includes also many of the prominentcharacteristics of hospital gangrene. This will be rendered evident byan examination of the observations of Dr. Lind and Sir Gilbert Blane uponscorbutic ulcers. 

6th. Gangrenous spots followed by rapid destruction of tissue appearedin some cases where there had been no known wound. Without suchwell-established facts, it might be assumed that the disease waspropagated from one patient to another. In such a filthy and crowdedhospital as that of the Confederate States Military Prison atAndersonville, it was impossible to isolate the wounded from the sourcesof actual contact of the gangrenous matter. The flies swarming over thewounds and over filth of every kind, the filthy, imperfectly washed andscanty supplies of rags, and the limited supply of washing utensils, thesame wash-bowl serving for scores of patients, were sources of suchconstant circulation of the gangrenous matter that the disease mightrapidly spread from a single gangrenous wound. The fact already stated, that a form of moist gangrene, resembling hospital gangrene, was quitecommon in this foul atmosphere, in cases of dysentery, both with andwithout the existence of the disease upon the entire surface, not onlydemonstrates the dependence of the disease upon the state of theconstitution, but proves in the clearest manner that neither the contactof the poisonous matter of gangrene, nor the direct action of thepoisonous atmosphere upon the ulcerated surfaces is necessary to thedevelopment of the disease. 

7th. In this foul atmosphere amputation did not arrest hospitalgangrene; the disease almost invariably returned. Almost everyamputation was followed finally by death, either from the effects ofgangrene or from the prevailing diarrhea and dysentery. Nitric acid andescharotics generally in this crowded atmosphere, loaded with noxiouseffluvia, exerted only temporary effects; after their application to thediseased surfaces, the gangrene would frequently return with redoubledenergy; and even after the gangrene had been completely removed by localand constitutional treatment, it would frequently return and destroy thepatient. As far as my observation extended, very few of the cases ofamputation for gangrene recovered. The progress of these cases wasfrequently very deceptive. I have observed after death the mostextensive disorganization of the structures of the stump, when duringlife there was but little swelling of the part, and the patient wasapparently doing well. I endeavored to impress upon the medical officersthe view that in this disease treatment was almost useless, without anabundant supply of pure, fresh air, nutritious food, and tonics andstimulants. Such changes, however, as would allow of the isolation ofthe cases of hospital gangrene appeared to be out of the power of themedical officers. 

8th. The gangrenous mass was without true pus, and consisted chiefly ofbroken-down, disorganized structures. The reaction of the gangrenousmatter in certain stages was alkaline. 

9th. The best, and in truth the only means of protecting large armiesand navies, as well as prisoners, from the ravages of hospital gangrene, is to furnish liberal supplies of well-cured meat, together with freshbeef and vegetables, and to enforce a rigid system of hygiene. 

10th. Finally, this gigantic mass of human misery calls loudly forrelief, not only for the sake of suffering humanity, but also on accountof our own brave soldiers now captives in the hands of the FederalGovernment. Strict justice to the gallant men of the Confederate Armies, who have been or who may be, so unfortunate as to be compelled tosurrender in battle, demands that the Confederate Government should adoptthat course which will best secure their health and comfort in captivity;or at least leave their enemies without a shadow of an excuse for anyviolation of the rules of civilized warfare in the treatment ofprisoners. 

 [End of the Witness's Testimony. ]

The variation--from month to month--of the proportion of deaths to thewhole number living is singular and interesting. It supports the theoryI have advanced above, as the following facts, taken from the officialreport, will show: In April one in every sixteen died. In May one in every twenty-six died. In June one in every twenty-two died. In July one in every eighteen died. In August one in every eleven died. In September one in every three died. In October one in every two died. In November one in every three died. 

Does the reader fully understand that in September one-third of those inthe pen died, that in October one-half of the remainder perished, and inNovember one-third of those who still survived, died? Let him pause fora moment and read this over carefully again; because its startlingmagnitude will hardly dawn upon him at first reading. It is true thatthe fearfully disproportionate mortality of those months was largely dueto the fact that it was mostly the sick that remained behind, but eventhis diminishes but little the frightfulness of the showing. Did any oneever hear of an epidemic so fatal that one-third of those attacked by itin one month died; one-half of the remnant the next month, and one-thirdof the feeble remainder the next month? If he did, his reading has beenmuch more extensive than mine. 

The greatest number of deaths in one day is reported to have occurred onthe 23d of August, when one hundred and twenty-seven died, or one manevery eleven minutes. 

The greatest number of prisoners in the Stockade is stated to have beenAugust 8, when there were thirty-three thousand one hundred and fourteen. 

I have always imagined both these statements to be short of the truth, because my remembrance is that one day in August I counted over twohundred dead lying in a row. As for the greatest number of prisoners, I remember quite distinctly standing by the ration wagon during the wholetime of the delivery of rations, to see how many prisoners there reallywere inside. That day the One Hundred and Thirty-Third Detachment wascalled, and its Sergeant came up and drew rations for a full detachment. All the other detachments were habitually kept full by replacing thosewho died with new comers. As each detachment consisted of two hundredand seventy men, one hundred and thirty-three detachments would makethirty-five thousand nine hundred and ten, exclusive of those in thehospital, and those detailed outside as cooks, clerks, hospitalattendants and various other employments--say from one to two thousandmore. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

DIFFICULTY OF EXERCISING--EMBARRASSMENTS OF A MORNING WALK--THE RIALTOOF THE PRISON--CURSING THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY--THE STORY OF THE BATTLEOF SPOTTSYLVANIA COURTHOUSE. 

Certainly, in no other great community, that ever existed upon the faceof the globe was there so little daily ebb and flow as in this. Dull asan ordinary Town or City may be; however monotonous, eventless, evenstupid the lives of its citizens, there is yet, nevertheless, a flowevery day of its life-blood--its population towards its heart, and an ebbof the same, every evening towards its extremities. These recurringtides mingle all classes together and promote the general healthfulness, as the constant motion hither and yon of the ocean's waters purify andsweeten them. 

The lack of these helped vastly to make the living mass inside theStockade a human Dead Sea--or rather a Dying Sea--a putrefying, stinkinglake, resolving itself into phosphorescent corruption, like those rottingsouthern seas, whose seething filth burns in hideous reds, and ghastlygreens and yellows. 

Being little call for motion of any kind, and no room to exercisewhatever wish there might be in that direction, very many succumbedunresistingly to the apathy which was so strongly favored by despondencyand the weakness induced by continual hunger, and lying supinely on thehot sand, day in and day out, speedily brought themselves into such acondition as invited the attacks of disease. 

It required both determination and effort to take a little walkingexercise. The ground was so densely crowded with holes and other devicesfor shelter that it took one at least ten minutes to pick his way throughthe narrow and tortuous labyrinth which served as paths for communicationbetween different parts of the Camp. Still further, there was nothing tosee anywhere or to form sufficient inducement for any one to make solaborious a journey. One simply encountered at every new step the sameunwelcome sights that he had just left; there was a monotony in themisery as in everything else, and consequently the temptation to sit orlie still in one's own quarters became very great. 

I used to make it a point to go to some of the remoter parts of theStockade once every day, simply for exercise. One can gain some idea ofthe crowd, and the difficulty of making one's way through it, when I saythat no point in the prison could be more than fifteen hundred feet fromwhere I staid, and, had the way been clear, I could have walked thitherand back in at most a half an hour, yet it usually took me from two tothree hours to make one of these journeys. 

This daily trip, a few visits to the Creek to wash all over, a few gamesof chess, attendance upon roll call, drawing rations, cooking and eatingthe same, "lousing" my fragments of clothes, and doing some little dutiesfor my sick and helpless comrades, constituted the daily routine formyself, as for most of the active youths in the prison. 

The Creek was the great meeting point for all inside the Stockade. All able to walk were certain to be there at least once during the day, and we made it a rendezvous, a place to exchange gossip, discuss thelatest news, canvass the prospects of exchange, and, most of all, to curse the Rebels. Indeed no conversation ever progressed very farwithout both speaker and listener taking frequent rests to say bitterthings as to the Rebels generally, and Wirz, Winder and Davis inparticular. 

A conversation between two boys--strangers to each other who came to theCreek to wash themselves or their clothes, or for some other purpose, would progress thus:

First Boy--"I belong to the Second Corps, --Hancock's, [the Army of thePotomac boys always mentioned what Corps they belonged to, where theWestern boys stated their Regiment. ] They got me at Spottsylvania, whenthey were butting their heads against our breast-works, trying to geteven with us for gobbling up Johnson in the morning, "--He stops suddenlyand changes tone to say: "I hope to God, that when our folks getRichmond, they will put old Ben Butler in command of it, with orders tolimb, skin and jayhawk it worse than he did New Orleans. "

Second Boy, (fervently :) "I wish to God he would, and that he'd catchold Jeff. , and that grayheaded devil, Winder, and the old Dutch Captain, strip 'em just as we were, put 'em in this pen, with just the rationsthey are givin' us, and set a guard of plantation niggers over 'em, withorders to blow their whole infernal heads off, if they dared so much asto look at the dead line. "

First Boy--(returning to the story of his capture. ) "Old Hancock caughtthe Johnnies that morning the neatest you ever saw anything in your life. After the two armies had murdered each other for four or five days in theWilderness, by fighting so close together that much of the time you couldalmost shake hands with the Graybacks, both hauled off a little, and layand glowered at each other. Each side had lost about twenty thousand menin learning that if it attacked the other it would get mashed fine. So each built a line of works and lay behind them, and tried to nag theother into coming out and attacking. At Spottsylvania our lines andthose of the Johnnies weren't twelve hundred yards apart. The ground wasclear and clean between them, and any force that attempted to cross it toattack would be cut to pieces, as sure as anything. We laid there threeor four days watching each other--just like boys at school, who shakefists and dare each other. At one place the Rebel line ran out towardsus like the top of a great letter 'A. ' The night of the 11th of May itrained very hard, and then came a fog so thick that you couldn't see thelength of a company. Hancock thought he'd take advantage of this. We were all turned out very quietly about four o'clock in the morning. Not a bit of noise was allowed. We even had to take off our canteens andtin cups, that they might not rattle against our bayonets. The groundwas so wet that our footsteps couldn't be heard. It was one of thosedeathly, still movements, when you think your heart is making as muchnoise as a bass drum. 

"The Johnnies didn't seem to have the faintest suspicion of what wascoming, though they ought, because we would have expected such an attackfrom them if we hadn't made it ourselves. Their pickets were out just alittle ways from their works, and we were almost on to them before theydiscovered us. They fired and ran back. At this we raised a yell anddashed forward at a charge. As we poured over the works, the Rebels camedouble-quicking up to defend them. We flanked Johnson's Divisionquicker'n you could say 'Jack Robinson, ' and had four thousand of 'em inour grip just as nice as you please. We sent them to the rear underguard, and started for the next line of Rebel works about a half a mileaway. But we had now waked up the whole of Lee's army, and they all camestraight for us, like packs of mad wolves. Ewell struck us in thecenter; Longstreet let drive at our left flank, and Hill tackled ourright. We fell back to the works we had taken, Warren and Wright came upto help us, and we had it hot and heavy for the rest of the day and partof the night. The Johnnies seemed so mad over what we'd done that theywere half crazy. They charged us five times, coming up every time justas if they were going to lift us right out of the works with the bayonet. About midnight, after they'd lost over ten thousand men, they seemed tounderstand that we had pre-empted that piece of real estate, and didn'tpropose to allow anybody to jump our claim, so they fell back sullen liketo their main works. When they came on the last charge, our Brigadierwalked behind each of our regiments and said:

"Boys, we'll send 'em back this time for keeps. Give it to 'em by theacre, and when they begin to waver, we'll all jump over the works and gofor them with the bayonet. '

"We did it just that way. We poured such a fire on them that the bulletsknocked up the ground in front just like you have seen the deep dust in aroad in the middle of Summer fly up when the first great big drops of arain storm strike it. But they came on, yelling and swearing, officersin front waving swords, and shouting--all that business, you know. Whenthey got to about one hundred yards from us, they did not seem to becoming so fast, and there was a good deal of confusion among them. Thebrigade bugle sounded:

"Stop firing. "

"We all ceased instantly. The rebels looked up in astonishment. OurGeneral sang out:

"Fix bayonets!' but we knew what was coming, and were already executingthe order. You can imagine the crash that ran down the line, as everyfellow snatched his bayonet out and slapped it on the muzzle of his gun. Then the General's voice rang out like a bugle:

"Ready!--FORWARD! CHARGE!'

"We cheered till everything seemed to split, and jumped over the works, almost every man at the same minute. The Johnnies seemed to have beenpuzzled at the stoppage of our fire. When we all came sailing over theworks, with guns brought right, down where they meant business, they wereso astonished for a minute that they stood stock still, not knowingwhether to come for us, or run. We did not allow them long to debate, but went right towards them on the double quick, with the bayonetslooking awful savage and hungry. It was too much for Mr. Johnny Reb'snerves. They all seemed to about face' at once, and they lit out ofthere as if they had been sent for in a hurry. We chased after 'em asfast as we could, and picked up just lots of 'em. Finally it began to bereal funny. A Johnny's wind would begin to give out he'd fall behind hiscomrades; he'd hear us yell and think that we were right behind him, ready to sink a bayonet through him'; he'd turn around, throw up hishands, and sing out:

"I surrender, mister! I surrender!' and find that we were a hundred feetoff, and would have to have a bayonet as long as one of McClellan'sgeneral orders to touch him. 

"Well, my company was the left of our regiment, and our regiment was theleft of the brigade, and we swung out ahead of all the rest of the boys. In our excitement of chasing the Johnnies, we didn't see that we hadpassed an angle of their works. About thirty of us had become separatedfrom the company and were chasing a squad of about seventy-five or onehundred. We had got up so close to them that we hollered:

"'Halt there, now, or we'll blow your heads off. '

"They turned round with, 'halt yourselves; you ---- Yankee ---- ----'

"We looked around at this, and saw that we were not one hundred feet awayfrom the angle of the works, which were filled with Rebels waiting forour fellows to get to where they could have a good flank fire upon them. There was nothing to do but to throw down our guns and surrender, and wehad hardly gone inside of the works, until the Johnnies opened on ourbrigade and drove it back. This ended the battle at Spottsylvania CourtHouse. "

Second Boy (irrelevantly. ) "Some day the underpinning will fly out fromunder the South, and let it sink right into the middle kittle o' hell. "

First Boy (savagely. ) "I only wish the whole Southern Confederacy washanging over hell by a single string, and I had a knife. "

CHAPTER XLIV. 

REBEL MUSIC--SINGULAR LACK OF THE CREATIVE POWER AMONG THE SOUTHERNERS--CONTRAST WITH SIMILAR PEOPLE ELSEWHERE--THEIR FAVORITE MUSIC, AND WHEREIT WAS BORROWED FROM--A FIFER WITH ONE TUNE. 

I have before mentioned as among the things that grew upon one withincreasing acquaintance with the Rebels on their native heath, wasastonishment at their lack of mechanical skill and at their inability tograpple with numbers and the simpler processes of arithmetic. Anothercharacteristic of the same nature was their wonderful lack of musicalability, or of any kind of tuneful creativeness. 

Elsewhere, all over the world, people living under similar conditions tothe Southerners are exceedingly musical, and we owe the great majority ofthe sweetest compositions which delight the ear and subdue the senses tounlettered song-makers of the Swiss mountains, the Tyrolese valleys, theBavarian Highlands, and the minstrels of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. 

The music of English-speaking people is very largely made up of thesecontributions from the folk-songs of dwellers in the wilder and moremountainous parts of the British Isles. One rarely goes far out of theway in attributing to this source any air that he may hear thatcaptivates him with its seductive opulence of harmony. Exquisitemelodies, limpid and unstrained as the carol of a bird in Spring-time, and as plaintive as the cooing of a turtle-dove seems as natural productsof the Scottish Highlands as the gorse which blazons on their hillsidesin August. Debarred from expressing their aspirations as people ofbroader culture do--in painting, in sculpture, in poetry and prose, thesemountaineers make song the flexible and ready instrument for thecommunication of every emotion that sweeps across their souls. 

Love, hatred, grief, revenge, anger, and especially war seems to tunetheir minds to harmony, and awake the voice of song in them hearts. Thebattles which the Scotch and Irish fought to replace the luckless Stuartsupon the British throne--the bloody rebellions of 1715 and 1745, left arich legacy of sweet song, the outpouring of loving, passionate loyaltyto a wretched cause; songs which are today esteemed and sung wherever theEnglish language is spoken, by people who have long since forgotten whatburning feelings gave birth to their favorite melodies. 

For a century the bones of both the Pretenders have moldered in aliensoil; the names of James Edward, and Charles Edward, which were oncetrumpet blasts to rouse armed men, mean as little to the multitude oftoday as those of the Saxon Ethelbert, and Danish Hardicanute, yet theworld goes on singing--and will probably as long as the English languageis spoken--"Wha'll be King but Charlie?" "When Jamie Come Hame, " "Overthe Water to Charlie, " "Charlie is my Darling, " "The Bonny Blue Bonnetsare Over the Border, " "Saddle Your Steeds and Awa, " and a myriad otherswhose infinite tenderness and melody no modern composer can equal. 

Yet these same Scotch and Irish, the same Jacobite English, transplantedon account of their chronic rebelliousness to the mountains of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, seem to have lost their tunefulness, as somefine singing birds do when carried from their native shores. 

The descendants of those who drew swords for James and Charles at PrestonPans and Culloden dwell to-day in the dales and valleys of theAlleganies, as their fathers did in the dales and valleys of theGrampians, but their voices are mute. 

As a rule the Southerners are fond of music. They are fond of singingand listening to old-fashioned ballads, most of which have never beenprinted, but handed down from one generation to the other, like the'Volklieder' of Germany. They sing these with the wild, fervidimpressiveness characteristic of the ballad singing of unlettered people. Very many play tolerably on the violin and banjo, and occasionally one isfound whose instrumentation may be called good. But above this hightthey never soar. The only musician produced by the South of whom therest of the country has ever heard, is Blind Tom, the negro idiot. Nocomposer, no song writer of any kind has appeared within the borders ofDixie. 

It was a disappointment to me that even the stress of the war, thepassion and fierceness with which the Rebels felt and fought, could notstimulate any adherent of the Stars and Bars into the production of asingle lyric worthy in the remotest degree of the magnitude of thestruggle, and the depth of the popular feeling. Where two millionScotch, fighting to restore the fallen fortunes of the worse thanworthless Stuarts, filled the world with immortal music, eleven millionof Southerners, fighting for what they claimed to be individual freedomand national life, did not produce any original verse, or a bar of musicthat the world could recognize as such. This is the fact; and anundeniable one. Its explanation I must leave to abler analyststhan I am. 

Searching for peculiar causes we find but two that make the South differfrom the ancestral home of these people. These two were Climate andSlavery. Climatic effects will not account for the phenomenon, becausewe see that the peasantry of the mountains of Spain and the South ofFrance as ignorant as these people, and dwellers in a still moreenervating atmosphere-are very fertile in musical composition, and theirsongs are to the Romanic languages what the Scotch and Irish ballads areto the English. 

Then it must be ascribed to the incubus of Slavery upon the intellect, which has repressed this as it has all other healthy growths in theSouth. Slavery seems to benumb all the faculties except the passions. The fact that the mountaineers had but few or no slaves, does not seem tobe of importance in the case. They lived under the deadly shadow of theupas tree, and suffered the consequences of its stunting theirdevelopment in all directions, as the ague-smitten inhabitant of theRoman Campana finds every sense and every muscle clogged by the filteringin of the insidious miasma. They did not compose songs and music, because they did not have the intellectual energy for that work. 

The negros displayed all the musical creativeness of that section. Their wonderful prolificness in wild, rude songs, with strangelymelodious airs that burned themselves into the memory, was one of thesalient characteristics of that down-trodden race. Like the Russianserfs, and the bondmen of all ages and lands, the songs they made andsang all had an undertone of touching plaintiveness, born of ages of dumbsuffering. The themes were exceedingly simple, and the range of subjectslimited. The joys, and sorrows, hopes and despairs of love'sgratification or disappointment, of struggles for freedom, contests withmalign persons and influences, of rage, hatred, jealousy, revenge, suchas form the motifs for the majority of the poetry of free and strongraces, were wholly absent from their lyrics. Religion, hunger and toilwere their main inspiration. They sang of the pleasures of idling in thegenial sunshine; the delights of abundance of food; the eternal happinessthat awaited them in the heavenly future, where the slave-driver ceasedfrom troubling and the weary were at rest; where Time rolled around inendless cycles of days spent in basking, harp in hand, and silken clad, in golden streets, under the soft effulgence of cloudless skies, glowingwith warmth and kindness emanating from the Creator himself. Had theirmasters condescended to borrow the music of the slaves, they would havefound none whose sentiments were suitable for the ode of a peopleundergoing the pangs of what was hoped to be the birth of a new nation. 

The three songs most popular at the South, and generally regarded asdistinctively Southern, were "The Bonnie Blue Flag, " "Maryland, MyMaryland, " and "Stonewall Jackson Crossing into Maryland. " The first ofthese was the greatest favorite by long odds. Women sang, men whistled, and the so-called musicians played it wherever we went. While in thefield before capture, it was the commonest of experiences to have Rebelwomen sing it at us tauntingly from the house that we passed or nearwhich we stopped. If ever near enough a Rebel camp, we were sure to hearits wailing crescendo rising upon the air from the lips or instruments ofsome one more quartered there. At Richmond it rang upon us constantlyfrom some source or another, and the same was true wherever else we wentin the so-called Confederacy. 

All familiar with Scotch songs will readily recognize the name and air asan old friend, and one of the fierce Jacobite melodies that for a longtime disturbed the tranquility of the Brunswick family on the Englishthrone. The new words supplied by the Rebels are the merest doggerel, and fit the music as poorly as the unchanged name of the song fitted toits new use. The flag of the Rebellion was not a bonnie blue one; buthad quite as much red and white as azure. It did not have a single star, but thirteen. 

Near in popularity was "Maryland, My Maryland. " The versification ofthis was of a much higher Order, being fairly respectable. The air isold, and a familiar one to all college students, and belongs to one ofthe most common of German household songs:

 O, Tannenbaum! O, Tannenbaum, wie tru sind deine Blatter! Da gruenst nicht nur zur Sommerseit, Nein, auch in Winter, when es Schneit, etc. 

which Longfellow has finely translated, O, hemlock tree! O, hemlock tree! how faithful are thy branches!Green not alone in Summer time, But in the Winter's float and rime. O, hemlock tree O, hemlock tree! how faithful are thy branches! Etc. 

The Rebel version ran:

 MARYLAND. 

The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland!His touch is at thy temple door, Maryland!Avenge the patriotic goreThat flecked the streets of Baltimore, And be the battle queen of yore, Maryland! My Maryland!

Hark to the wand'ring son's appeal, Maryland!My mother State, to thee I kneel, Maryland!For life and death, for woe and weal, Thy peerless chivalry reveal, And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, Maryland! My Maryland!

Thou wilt not cower in the duet, Maryland!Thy beaming sword shall never rust Maryland!Remember Carroll's sacred trust, Remember Howard's warlike thrust--And all thy slumberers with the just, Maryland! My Maryland!

Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day, Maryland!Come! with thy panoplied array, Maryland!With Ringgold's spirit for the fray, With Watson's blood at Monterey, With fearless Lowe and dashing May, Maryland! My Maryland!

Comet for thy shield is bright and strong, Maryland!Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, Maryland!Come! to thins own heroic throng, That stalks with Liberty along, And give a new Key to thy song, Maryland! My Maryland!

Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain, Maryland!Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland!She meets her sisters on the plain--'Sic semper' 'tis the proud refrain, That baffles millions back amain, Maryland!Arise, in majesty again, Maryland! My Maryland!

I see the blush upon thy cheek, Maryland!But thou wast ever bravely meek, Maryland!But lo! there surges forth a shriekFrom hill to hill, from creek to creek--Potomac calls to Chesapeake, Maryland! My Maryland!

Thou wilt not yield the vandal toll. Maryland!Thou wilt not crook to his control, Maryland!Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the blade, the shot, the bowl, Than crucifixion of the soul, Maryland! My Maryland!

I hear the distant Thunder hem, Maryland!The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum. Maryland!She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb--Hnzza! she spurns the Northern scum!She breathes--she burns! she'll come! she'll come!Maryland! My Maryland!

"Stonewall Jackson Crossing into Maryland, " was another travesty, ofabout the same literary merit, or rather demerit, as "The Bonnie BlueFlag. " Its air was that of the well-known and popular negro minstrelsong, "Billy Patterson. " For all that, it sounded very martial andstirring when played by a brass band. 

We heard these songs with tiresome iteration, daily and nightly, duringour stay in the Southern Confederacy. Some one of the guards seemed tobe perpetually beguiling the weariness of his watch by singing in allkeys, in every sort of a voice, and with the wildest latitude as to airand time. They became so terribly irritating to us, that to this day theremembrance of those soul-lacerating lyrics abides with me as one of thechief of the minor torments of our situation. They were, in fact, nearlyas bad as the lice. 

We revenged ourselves as best we could by constructing fearfully wicked, obscene and insulting parodies on these, and by singing them withirritating effusiveness in the hearing of the guards who were inflictingthese nuisances upon us. 

Of the same nature was the garrison music. One fife, played by anasthmatic old fellow whose breathings were nearly as audible as hisnotes, and one rheumatic drummer, constituted the entire band for thepost. The fifer actually knew but one tune "The Bonnie Blue Flag"--and did not know that well. But it was all that he had, and he played itwith wearisome monotony for every camp call--five or six times a day, and seven days in the week. He called us up in the morning with it for areveille; he sounded the "roll call" and "drill call, " breakfast, dinnerand supper with it, and finally sent us to bed, with the same dreary wailthat had rung in our ears all day. I never hated any piece of music as Icame to hate that threnody of treason. It would have been such a reliefif the old asthmatic who played it could have been induced to learnanother tune to play on Sundays, and give us one day of rest. He didnot, but desecrated the Lord's Day by playing as vilely as on the rest ofthe week. The Rebels were fully conscious of their musical deficiencies, and made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to induce the musicians amongthe prisoners to come outside and form a band. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

AUGUST--NEEDLES STUCK IN PUMPKIN SEEDS--SOME PHENOMENA OF STARVATION--RIOTING IN REMEMBERED LUXURIES. 

"Illinoy, " said tall, gaunt Jack North, of the One Hundred and FourteenthIllinois, to me, one day, as we sat contemplating our naked, and sadlyattenuated underpinning; "what do our legs and feet most look most like?"

"Give it up, Jack, " said I. 

"Why--darning needles stuck in pumpkin seeds, of course. " I never hearda better comparison for our wasted limbs. 

The effects of the great bodily emaciation were sometimes very startling. Boys of a fleshy habit would change so in a few weeks as to lose allresemblance to their former selves, and comrades who came into prisonlater would utterly fail to recognize them. Most fat men, as most largemen, died in a little while after entering, though there were exceptions. One of these was a boy of my own company, named George Hillicks. Georgehad shot up within a few years to over six feet in hight, and then, assuch boys occasionally do, had, after enlisting with us, taken on such adevelopment of flesh that we nicknamed him the "Giant, " and he became apretty good load for even the strongest horse. George held his fleshthrough Belle Isle, and the earlier weeks in Andersonville, but June, July, and August "fetched him, " as the boys said. He seemed to melt awaylike an icicle on a Spring day, and he grew so thin that his hight seemedpreternatural. We called him "Flagstaff, " and cracked all sorts of jokesabout putting an insulator on his head, and setting him up for atelegraph pole, braiding his legs and using him for a whip lash, lettinghis hair grow a little longer, and trading him off to the Rebels for asponge and staff for the artillery, etc. We all expected him to die, and looked continually for the development of the fatal scurvy symptoms, which were to seal his doom. But he worried through, and came out atlast in good shape, a happy result due as much as to anything else to hishaving in Chester Hayward, of Prairie City, Ill. , --one of the mostdevoted chums I ever knew. Chester nursed and looked out for George withwife-like fidelity, and had his reward in bringing him safe through ourlines. There were thousands of instances of this generous devotion toeach other by chums in Andersonville, and I know of nothing that reflectsany more credit upon our boy soldiers. 

There was little chance for any one to accumulate flesh on the rations wewere receiving. I say it in all soberness that I do not believe that ahealthy hen could have grown fat upon them. I am sure that anygood-sized "shanghai" eats more every day than the meager half loaf that wehad to maintain life upon. Scanty as this was, and hungry as all were, very many could not eat it. Their stomachs revolted against the trash;it became so nauseous to them that they could not force it down, evenwhen famishing, and they died of starvation with the chunks of theso-called bread under their head. I found myself rapidly approaching thiscondition. I had been blessed with a good digestion and a talent forsleeping under the most discouraging circumstances. These, I have nodoubt, were of the greatest assistance to me in my struggle forexistence. But now the rations became fearfully obnoxious to me, and itwas only with the greatest effort--pulling the bread into little piecesand swallowing each, of these as one would a pill--that I succeeded inworrying the stuff down. I had not as yet fallen away very much, but asI had never, up, to that time, weighed so much as one hundred andtwenty-five pounds, there was no great amount of adipose to lose. It wasevident that unless some change occurred my time was near at hand. 

There was not only hunger for more food, but longing with an intensitybeyond expression for alteration of some kind in the rations. The changeless monotony of the miserable saltless bread, or worse mush, for days, weeks and months, became unbearable. If those wretched muleteams had only once a month hauled in something different--if they hadcome in loaded with sweet potatos, green corn or wheat flour, there wouldbe thousands of men still living who now slumber beneath those melancholypines. It would have given something to look forward to, and rememberwhen past. But to know each day that the gates would open to admit thesame distasteful apologies for food took away the appetite and raisedone's gorge, even while famishing for something to eat. 

We could for a while forget the stench, the lice, the heat, the maggots, the dead and dying around us, the insulting malignance of our jailors;but it was, very hard work to banish thoughts and longings for food fromour minds. Hundreds became actually insane from brooding over it. Crazymen could be found in all parts of the camp. Numbers of them wanderedaround entirely naked. Their babblings and maunderings about somethingto eat were painful to hear. I have before mentioned the case of thePlymouth Pilgrim near me, whose insanity took the form of imagining thathe was sitting at the table with his family, and who would go through theshow of helping them to imaginary viands and delicacies. The cravingsfor green food of those afflicted with the scurvy were, agonizing. Largenumbers of watermelons were brought to the prison, and sold to those whohad the money to pay for them at from one to five dollars, greenbacks, apiece. A boy who had means to buy a piece of these would be followedabout while eating it by a crowd of perhaps twenty-five or thirtylivid-gummed scorbutics, each imploring him for the rind when he wasthrough with it. 

We thought of food all day, and were visited with torturing dreams of itat night. One of the pleasant recollections of my pre-military life wasa banquet at the "Planter's House, " St. Louis, at which I was a boyishguest. It was, doubtless, an ordinary affair, as banquets go, but to methen, with all the keen appreciation of youth and first experience, itwas a feast worthy of Lucullus. But now this delightful reminiscencebecame a torment. Hundreds of times I dreamed I was again at the"Planter's. " I saw the wide corridors, with their mosaic pavement;I entered the grand dining-room, keeping timidly near the friend to whosekindness I owed this wonderful favor; I saw again the mirror-lined walls, the evergreen decked ceilings, the festoons and mottos, the tablesgleaming with cutglass and silver, the buffets with wines and fruits, the brigade of sleek, black, white-aproned waiters, headed by one who hadpresence enough for a major General. Again I reveled in all the daintiesand dishes on the bill-of-fare; calling for everything that I dared to, just to see what each was like, and to be able to say afterwards that Ihad partaken of it; all these bewildering delights of the firstrealization of what a boy has read and wondered much over, and longedfor, would dance their rout and reel through my somnolent brain. Then Iwould awake to find myself a half-naked, half-starved, vermin-eatenwretch, crouching in a hole in the ground, waiting for my keepers tofling me a chunk of corn bread. 

Naturally the boys--and especially the country boys and new prisoners--talked much of victuals--what they had had, and what they would haveagain, when they got out. Take this as a sample of the conversationwhich might be heard in any group of boys, sitting together on the sand, killin lice and talking of exchange:

Tom--"Well, Bill, when we get back to God's country, you and Jim and Johnmust all come to my house and take dinner with me. I want to give you asquare meal. I want to show you just what good livin' is. You know mymother is just the best cook in all that section. When she lays herselfout to get up a meal all the other women in the neighborhood just standback and admire!"

Bill--"O, that's all right; but I'll bet she can't hold a candle to mymother, when it comes to good cooking. "

Jim--"No, nor to mine. "

John--(with patronizing contempt. ) "O, shucks! None of you fellers wereever at our house, even when we had one of our common weekday dinners. "

Tom--(unheedful of the counter claims. ) I hev teen studyin' up the dinnerI'd like, and the bill-of-fare I'd set out for you fellers when you comeover to see me. First, of course, we'll lay the foundation like with anice, juicy loin roast, and some mashed potatos. 

Bill--(interrupting. ) "Now, do you like mashed potatos with beef? Theway may mother does is to pare the potatos, and lay them in the pan alongwith the beef. Then, you know, they come out just as nice and crisp, andbrown; they have soaked up all the beef gravy, and they crinkle betweenyour teeth--"

Jim--"Now, I tell you, mashed Neshannocks with butter on 'em is plentygood enough for me. "

John--"If you'd et some of the new kind of peachblows that we raised inthe old pasture lot the year before I enlisted, you'd never say anotherword about your Neshannocks. "

Tom--(taking breath and starting in fresh. ) "Then we'll hev some friedSpring chickens, of our dominick breed. Them dominicks of ours have thenicest, tenderest meat, better'n quail, a darned sight, and the way mymother can fry Spring chickens----"

Bill--(aside to Jim. ) "Every durned woman in the country thinks she can'spry ching frickens;' but my mother---"

John--"You fellers all know that there's nobody knows half as much aboutchicken doin's as these 'tinerant Methodis' preachers. They give 'emchicken wherever they go, and folks do say that out in the newsettlements they can't get no preachin', no gospel, nor nothin', untilthe chickens become so plenty that a preacher is reasonably sure ofhavin' one for his dinner wherever he may go. Now, there's old PeterCartwright, who has traveled over Illinoy and Indianny since the YearOne, and preached more good sermons than any other man who ever set onsaddle-bags, and has et more chickens than there are birds in a bigpigeon roost. Well, he took dinner at our house when he came up todedicate the big, white church at Simpkin's Corners, and when he passedup his plate the third time for more chicken, he sez, sez he:--I've etat a great many hundred tables in the fifty years I have labored in thevineyard of the Redeemer, but I must say, Mrs. Kiggins, that your way offrying chickens is a leetle the nicest that I ever knew. I only wishthat the sisters generally would get your reseet. ' Yes, that's what hesaid, --'a leetle the nicest. '"

Tom--"An' then, we'll hev biscuits an' butter. I'll just bet fivehundred dollars to a cent, and give back the cent if I win, that we havethe best butter at our house that there is in Central Illinoy. You can'tnever hev good butter onless you have a spring house; there's no use oftalkin'--all the patent churns that lazy men ever invented--all the fancymilk pans an' coolers, can't make up for a spring house. Locations for aspring house are scarcer than hen's teeth in Illinoy, but we hev one, andthere ain't a better one in Orange County, New York. Then you'll seedome of the biscuits my mother makes. "

Bill--"Well, now, my mother's a boss biscuit-maker, too. "

Jim--"You kin just gamble that mine is. "

John--"O, that's the way you fellers ought to think an' talk, but mymother----"

Tom--(coming in again with fresh vigor) "They're jest as light an' fluffyas a dandelion puff, and they melt in your month like a ripe Bartlettpear. You just pull 'em open--Now you know that I think there's nothin'that shows a person's raisin' so well as to see him eat biscuits an'butter. If he's been raised mostly on corn bread, an' common doins, 'an' don't know much about good things to eat, he'll most likely cut hisbiscuit open with a case knife, an' make it fall as flat as one o'yesterday's pancakes. But if he is used to biscuits, has had 'em oftenat his house, he'll--just pull 'em open, slow an' easy like, then he'lllay a little slice of butter inside, and drop a few drops of clear honeyon this, an' stick the two halves back, together again, an--"

"Oh, for God Almighty's sake, stop talking that infernal nonsense, " roarout a half dozen of the surrounding crowd, whose mouths have beenwatering over this unctuous recital of the good things of the table. "You blamed fools, do you want to drive yourselves and everybody elsecrazy with such stuff as that. Dry up and try to think of somethingelse. "

CHAPTER XLVI. 

SURLY BRITON--THE STOLID COURAGE THAT MAKES THE ENGLISH FLAG A BANNER OFTRIUMPH--OUR COMPANY BUGLER, HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND HIS DEATH--URGENTDEMAND FOR MECHANICS--NONE WANT TO GO--TREATMENT OF A REBEL SHOEMAKER--ENLARGEMENT OF THE STOCKADE--IT IS BROKEN BY A STORM--THE WONDERFULSPRING. 

Early in August, F. Marriott, our Company Bugler, died. Previous tocoming to America he had been for many years an English soldier, and Iaccepted him as a type of that stolid, doggedly brave class, which formsthe bulk of the English armies, and has for centuries carried the Britishflag with dauntless courage into every land under the sun. Rough, surlyand unsocial, he did his duty with the unemotional steadiness of amachine. He knew nothing but to obey orders, and obeyed them under allcircumstances promptly, but with stony impassiveness. With the commandto move forward into action, he moved forward without a word, and withface as blank as a side of sole leather. He went as far as ordered, halted at the word, and retired at command as phlegmatically as headvanced. If he cared a straw whether he advanced or retreated, if itmattered to the extent of a pinch of salt whether we whipped the Rebelsor they defeated us, he kept that feeling so deeply hidden in therecesses of his sturdy bosom that no one ever suspected it. In theexcitement of action the rest of the boys shouted, and swore, andexpressed their tense feelings in various ways, but Marriott might aswell have been a graven image, for all the expression that he suffered toescape. Doubtless, if the Captain had ordered him to shoot one of thecompany through the heart, he would have executed the command accordingto the manual of arms, brought his carbine to a "recover, " and at theword marched back to his quarters without an inquiry as to the cause ofthe proceedings. He made no friends, and though his surliness repelledus, he made few enemies. Indeed, he was rather a favorite, since he wasa genuine character; his gruffness had no taint of selfish greed in it;he minded his own business strictly, and wanted others to do the same. When he first came into the company, it is true, he gained the enmity ofnearly everybody in it, but an incident occurred which turned the tide inhis favor. Some annoying little depredations had been practiced on theboys, and it needed but a word of suspicion to inflame all their mindsagainst the surly Englishman as the unknown perpetrator. The feelingintensified, until about half of the company were in a mood to kill theBugler outright. As we were returning from stable duty one evening, some little occurrence fanned the smoldering anger into a fierce blaze;a couple of the smaller boys began an attack upon him; others hastened totheir assistance, and soon half the company were engaged in the assault. 

He succeeded in disengaging himself from his assailants, and, squaringhimself off, said, defiantly:

"Dom yer cowardly heyes; jest come hat me one hat a time, hand hI'llwollop the 'ole gang uv ye's. "

One of our Sergeants styled himself proudly "a Chicago rough, " and was asvain of his pugilistic abilities as a small boy is of a father who playsin the band. We all hated him cordially--even more than we did Marriott. 

He thought this was a good time to show off, and forcing his way throughthe crowd, he said, vauntingly:

"Just fall back and form a ring, boys, and see me polish off the---fool. "

The ring was formed, with the Bugler and the Sergeant in the center. Though the latter was the younger and stronger the first round showed himthat it would have profited him much more to have let Marriott'schallenge pass unheeded. As a rule, it is as well to ignore allinvitations of this kind from Englishmen, and especially from those who, like Marriott, have served a term in the army, for they are likely to beso handy with their fists as to make the consequences of an acceptancemore lively than desirable. 

So the Sergeant found. "Marriott, " as one of the spectators expressedit, "went around him like a cooper around a barrel. " He planted hisblows just where he wished, to the intense delight of the boys, whoyelled enthusiastically whenever he got in "a hot one, " and their delightat seeing the Sergeant drubbed so thoroughly and artistically, worked anentire revolution in his favor. 

Thenceforward we viewed his eccentricities with lenient eyes, and becamerather proud of his bull-dog stolidity and surliness. The wholebattalion soon came to share this feeling, and everybody enjoyed hearinghis deep-toned growl, which mischievous boys would incite by some pettyannoyances deliberately designed for that purpose. I will mentionincidentally, that after his encounter with the Sergeant no one everagain volunteered to "polish" him off. 

Andersonville did not improve either his temper or his communicativeness. He seemed to want to get as far away from the rest of us as possible, and took up his quarters in a remote corner of the Stockade, among utterstrangers. Those of us who wandered up in his neighborhood occasionally, to see how he was getting along, were received with such scant courtesy, that we did not hasten to repeat the visit. At length, after none of ushad seen him for weeks, we thought that comradeship demanded anothervisit. We found him in the last stages of scurvy and diarrhea. Chunksof uneaten corn bread lay by his head. They were at least a week old. The rations since then had evidently been stolen from the helpless man bythose around him. The place where he lay was indescribably filthy, andhis body was swarming with vermin. Some good Samaritan had filled hislittle black oyster can with water, and placed it within his reach. For a week, at least, he had not been able to rise from the ground;he could barely reach for the water near him. He gave us such a glare ofrecognition as I remembered to have seen light up the fast-darkening eyesof a savage old mastiff, that I and my boyish companions once found dyingin the woods of disease and hurts. Had he been able he would have drivenus away, or at least assailed us with biting English epithets. Thus hehad doubtless driven away all those who had attempted to help him. We did what little we could, and staid with him until the next afternoon, when he died. We prepared his body, in the customary way: folded thehands across his breast, tied the toes together, and carried it outside, not forgetting each of us, to bring back a load of wood. 

The scarcity of mechanics of all kinds in the Confederacy, and the urgentneeds of the people for many things which the war and the blockadeprevented their obtaining, led to continual inducements being offered tothe artizans among us to go outside and work at their trade. Shoemakersseemed most in demand; next to these blacksmiths, machinists, molders andmetal workers generally. Not a week passed during my imprisonment that Idid not see a Rebel emissary of some kind about the prison seeking toengage skilled workmen for some purpose or another. While in Richmondthe managers of the Tredegar Iron Works were brazen and persistent intheir efforts to seduce what are termed "malleable iron workers, " toenter their employ. A boy who was master of any one of the commonertrades had but to make his wishes known, and he would be allowed to goout on parole to work. I was a printer, and I think that at least adozen times I was approached by Rebel publishers with offers of a parole, and work at good prices. One from Columbia, S. C. , offered me twodollars and a half a "thousand" for composition. As the highest pricefor such work that I had received before enlisting was thirty cents athousand, this seemed a chance to accumulate untold wealth. Since a manworking in day time can set from thirty-five to fifty "thousand" a week, this would make weekly wages run from eighty-seven dollars and fiftycents to one hundred and twenty-five dollars--but it was in Confederatemoney, then worth from ten to twenty cents on the dollar. 

Still better offers were made to iron workers of all kinds, to shoemakers, tanners, weavers, tailors, hatters, engineers, machinists, millers, railroad men, and similar tradesmen. Any of these could havemade a handsome thing by accepting the offers made them almost weekly. As nearly all in the prison had useful trades, it would have been ofimmense benefit to the Confederacy if they could have been induced towork at them. There is no measuring the benefit it would have been tothe Southern cause if all the hundreds of tanners and shoemakers in theStockade could have, been persuaded to go outside and labor in providingleather and shoes for the almost shoeless people and soldiery. Themachinists alone could have done more good to the Southern Confederacythan one of our brigades was doing harm, by consenting to go to therailroad shops at Griswoldville and ply their handicraft. The lack ofmaterial resources in the South was one of the strongest allies our armshad. This lack of resources was primarily caused by a lack of skilledlabor to develop those resources, and nowhere could there be found afiner collection of skilled laborers than in the thirty-three thousandprisoners incarcerated in Andersonville. 

All solicitations to accept a parole and go outside to work at one'strade were treated with the scorn they deserved. If any mechanic yieldedto them, the fact did not come under my notice. The usual reply toinvitations of this kind was:

"No, Sir! By God, I'll stay in here till I rot, and the maggots carry meout through the cracks in the Stockade, before I'll so much as raise mylittle finger to help the infernal Confederacy, or Rebels, in any shapeor form. "

In August a Macon shoemaker came in to get some of his trade to go backwith him to work in the Confederate shoe factory. He prosecuted hissearch for these until he reached the center of the camp on the NorthSide, when some of the shoemakers who had gathered around him, apparentlyconsidering his propositions, seized him and threw him into a well. He was kept there a whole day, and only released when Wirz cut off therations of the prison for that day, and announced that no more would beissued until the man was returned safe and sound to the gate. 

The terrible crowding was somewhat ameliorated by the opening in July ofan addition--six hundred feet long--to the North Side of the Stockade. This increased the room inside to twenty acres, giving about an acre toevery one thousand seven hundred men, --a preposterously contracted areastill. The new ground was not a hotbed of virulent poison like the oldshowever, and those who moved on to it had that much in their favor. 

The palisades between the new and the old portions of the pen were leftstanding when the new portion was opened. We were still suffering agreat deal of inconvenience from lack of wood. That night the standingtimbers were attacked by thousands of prisoners armed with every speciesof a tool to cut wood, from a case-knife to an ax. They worked thelive-long night with such energy that by morning not only every inch ofthe logs above ground had disappeared, but that below had been dug up, and there was not enough left of the eight hundred foot wall oftwenty-five-foot logs to make a box of matches. 

One afternoon--early in August--one of the violent rain storms common tothat section sprung up, and in a little while the water was falling intorrents. The little creek running through the camp swelled upimmensely, and swept out large gaps in the Stockade, both in the west andeast sides. The Rebels noticed the breaches as soon as the prisoners. Two guns were fired from the Star Tort, and all the guards rushed out, and formed so as to prevent any egress, if one was attempted. Taken bysurprise, we were not in a condition to profit by the opportunity untilit was too late. 

The storm did one good thing: it swept away a great deal of filth, andleft the camp much more wholesome. The foul stench rising from the campmade an excellent electrical conductor, and the lightning struck severaltimes within one hundred feet of the prison. 

Toward the end of August there happened what the religously inclinedtermed a Providential Dispensation. The water in the Creek wasindescribably bad. No amount of familiarity with it, no increase ofintimacy with our offensive surroundings, could lessen the disgust at thepolluted water. As I have said previously, before the stream entered theStockade, it was rendered too filthy for any use by the contaminationsfrom the camps of the guards, situated about a half-mile above. Immediately on entering the Stockade the contamination became terrible. The oozy seep at the bottom of the hillsides drained directly into it allthe mass of filth from a population of thirty-three thousand. Imaginethe condition of an open sewer, passing through the heart of a city ofthat many people, and receiving all the offensive product of so dense agathering into a shallow, sluggish stream, a yard wide and five inchesdeep, and heated by the burning rays of the sun in the thirty-seconddegree of latitude. Imagine, if one can, without becoming sick at thestomach, all of these people having to wash in and drink of this foulflow. 

There is not a scintilla of exaggeration in this statement. That it iswithin the exact truth is demonstrable by the testimony of any man--Rebelor Union--who ever saw the inside of the Stockade at Andersonville. I amquite content to have its truth--as well as that of any other statementmade in this book--be determined by the evidence of any one, no matterhow bitter his hatred of the Union, who had any personal knowledge of thecondition of affairs at Andersonville. No one can successfully deny thatthere were at least thirty-three thousand prisoners in the Stockade, andthat the one shallow, narrow creek, which passed through the prison, wasat once their main sewer and their source of supply of water for bathing, drinking and washing. With these main facts admitted, the reader'scommon sense of natural consequences will furnish the rest of thedetails. 

It is true that some of the more fortunate of us had wells; thanks to ourown energy in overcoming extraordinary obstacles; no thanks to ourgaolers for making the slightest effort to provide these necessities oflife. We dug the wells with case and pocket knives, and half canteens toa depth of from twenty to thirty feet, pulling up the dirt in pantaloonslegs, and running continual risk of being smothered to death by thecaving in of the unwalled sides. Not only did the Rebels refuse to giveus boards with which to wall the wells, and buckets for drawing thewater, but they did all in their power to prevent us from digging thewells, and made continual forays to capture the digging tools, becausethe wells were frequently used as the starting places for tunnels. Professor Jones lays special stress on this tunnel feature in histestimony, which I have introduced in a previous chapter. 

The great majority of the prisoners who went to the Creek for water, wentas near as possible to the Dead Line on the West Side, where the Creekentered the Stockade, that they might get water with as little filth init as possible. In the crowds struggling there for their turn to take adip, some one nearly every day got so close to the Dead Line as to arousea suspicion in the guard's mind that he was touching it. The suspicionwas the unfortunate one's death warrant, and also its execution. As thesluggish brain of the guard conceived it he leveled his gun; the distanceto his victim was not over one hundred feet; he never failed his aim; thefirst warning the wretched prisoner got that he was suspected oftransgressing a prison-rule was the charge of "ball-and-buck" that torethrough his body. It was lucky if he was, the only one of the groupkilled. More wicked and unjustifiable murders never were committed thanthese almost daily assassinations at the Creek. 

One morning the camp was astonished beyond measure to discover thatduring the night a large, bold spring had burst out on the North Side, about midway between the Swamp and the summit of the hill. It poured outits grateful flood of pure, sweet water in an apparently exhaustlessquantity. To the many who looked in wonder upon it, it seemed as truly aheaven-wrought miracle as when Moses's enchanted rod smote the parchedrock in Sinai's desert waste, and the living waters gushed forth. 

The police took charge of the spring, and every one was compelled to takehis regular turn in filling his vessel. This was kept up during ourwhole stay in Andersonville, and every morning, shortly after daybreak, a thousand men could be seen standing in line, waiting their turns tofill their cans and cups with the precious liquid. 

I am told by comrades who have revisited the Stockade of recent years, that the spring is yet running as when we left, and is held in most piousveneration by the negros of that vicinity, who still preserve thetradition of its miraculous origin, and ascribe to its water wonderfulgrace giving and healing properties, similar to those which piousCatholics believe exist in the holy water of the fountain at Lourdes. 

I must confess that I do not think they are so very far from right. If I could believe that any water was sacred and thaumaturgic, it wouldbe of that fountain which appeared so opportunely for the benefit of theperishing thousands of Andersonville. And when I hear of people bringingwater for baptismal purposes from the Jordan, I say in my heart, "Howmuch more would I value for myself and friends the administration of thechrismal sacrament with the diviner flow from that low sand-hill inWestern Georgia. "

CHAPTER XLVII. 

"SICK CALL, " AND THE SCENES THAT ACCOMPANIED IT--MUSTERING THE LAME, HALTAND DISEASED AT THE SOUTH GATE--AN UNUSUALLY BAD CASE--GOING OUT TO THEHOSPITAL--ACCOMMODATION AND TREATMENT OF THE PATIENTS THERE--THE HORRIBLESUFFERING IN THE GANGRENE WARD--BUNGLING AMPUTATIONS BY BLUNDERINGPRACTITIONERS--AFFECTION BETWEEN A SAILOR AND HIS WARD--DEATH OF MYCOMRADE. 

Every morning after roll-call, thousands of sick gathered at the SouthGate, where the doctors made some pretense of affording medical relief. The scene there reminded me of the illustrations in my Sunday-Schoollessons of that time when "great multitudes came unto Him, " by the shoresof the Sea of Galilee, "having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others. " Had the crowds worn the flouting robesof the East, the picture would have lacked nothing but the presence ofthe Son of Man to make it complete. Here were the burning sands andparching sun; hither came scores of groups of three or four comrades, laboriously staggering under the weight of a blanket in which they hadcarried a disabled and dying friend from some distant part of theStockade. Beside them hobbled the scorbutics with swollen and distortedlimbs, each more loathsome and nearer death than the lepers whom Christ'sdivine touch made whole. Dozens, unable to walk, and having no comradesto carry them, crawled painfully along, with frequent stops, on theirhands and knees. Every form of intense physical suffering that it ispossible for disease to induce in the human frame was visible at thesedaily parades of the sick of the prison. As over three thousand (threethousand and seventy-six) died in August, there were probably twelvethousand dangerously sick at any given time daring the month; and a largepart of these collected at the South Gate every morning. 

Measurably-calloused as we had become by the daily sights of horroraround us, we encountered spectacles in these gatherings which no amountof visible misery could accustom us to. I remember one especially thatburned itself deeply into my memory. It was of a young man not overtwenty-five, who a few weeks ago--his clothes looked comparatively new--had evidently been the picture of manly beauty and youthful vigor. He had had a well-knit, lithe form; dark curling hair fell over aforehead which had once been fair, and his eyes still showed that theyhad gleamed with a bold, adventurous spirit. The red clover leaf on hiscap showed that he belonged to the First Division of the Second Corps, the three chevrons on his arm that he was a Sergeant, and the stripe athis cuff that he was a veteran. Some kind-hearted boys had found him ina miserable condition on the North Side, and carried him over in ablanket to where the doctors could see him. He had but little clothingon, save his blouse and cap. Ulcers of some kind had formed in hisabdomen, and these were now masses of squirming worms. It was so muchworse than the usual forms of suffering, that quite a little crowd ofcompassionate spectators gathered around and expressed their pity. The sufferer turned to one who lay beside him with:

"Comrade: If we were only under the old Stars and Stripes, we wouldn'tcare a G-d d--n for a few worms, would we?"

This was not profane. It was an utterance from the depths of a braveman's heart, couched in the strongest language at his command. It seemedterrible that so gallant a soul should depart from earth in thismiserable fashion. Some of us, much moved by the sight, went to thedoctors and put the case as strongly as possible, begging them to dosomething to alleviate his suffering. They declined to see the case, but got rid of us by giving us a bottle of turpentine, with directions topour it upon the ulcers to kill the maggots. We did so. It must havebeen cruel torture, and as absurd remedially as cruel, but our hero sethis teeth and endured, without a groan. He was then carried out to thehospital to die. 

I said the doctors made a pretense of affording medical relief. It washardly that, since about all the prescription for those inside theStockade consisted in giving a handful of sumach berries to each of thosecomplaining of scurvy. The berries might have done some good, had therebeen enough of them, and had their action been assisted by proper food. As it was, they were probably nearly, if not wholly, useless. Nothingwas given to arrest the ravages of dysentery. 

A limited number of the worst cases were admitted to the Hospital eachday. As this only had capacity for about one-quarter of the sick in theStockade, new patients could only be admitted as others died. It seemed, anyway, like signing a man's death warrant to send him to the Hospital, as three out of every four who went out there died. The following fromthe official report of the Hospital shows this:

Total number admitted ......................................... 12, 900Died ................................................. 8, 663Exchanged ............................................ 828Took the oath of allegiance .......................... 25Sent elsewhere ....................................... 2, 889

Total ................................................ 12, 400

Average deaths, 76 per cent. 

Early in August I made a successful effort to get out to the Hospital. Ihad several reasons for this: First, one of my chums, W. W. Watts, ofmy own company, had been sent out a little whale before very sick withscurvy and pneumonia, and I wanted to see if I could do anything for him, if he still lived: I have mentioned before that for awhile after ourentrance into Andersonville five of us slept on one overcoat and coveredourselves with one blanket. Two of these had already died, leaving aspossessors of-the blanket and overcoat, W. W. Watts, B. B. Andrews, andmyself. 

Next, I wanted to go out to see if there was any prospect of escape. I had long since given up hopes of escaping from the Stockade. All ourattempts at tunneling had resulted in dead failures, and now, to make uswholly despair of success in that direction, another Stockade was builtclear around the prison, at a distance of one hundred and twenty feetfrom the first palisades. It was manifest that though we might succeedin tunneling past one Stockade, we could not go beyond the second one. 

I had the scurvy rather badly, and being naturally slight in frame, I presented a very sick appearance to the physicians, and was passed outto the Hospital. 

While this was a wretched affair, it was still a vast improvement on theStockade. About five acres of ground, a little southeast of theStockade, and bordering on a creek, were enclosed by a board fence, around which the guard walked, trees shaded the ground tolerably well. There were tents and flies to shelter part of the sick, and in these werebeds made of pine leaves. There were regular streets and alleys runningthrough the grounds, and as the management was in the hands of our ownmen, the place was kept reasonably clean and orderly for Andersonville. 

There was also some improvement in the food. Rice in some degreereplaced the nauseous and innutritious corn bread, and if served insufficient quantities, would doubtless have promoted the recovery of manymen dying from dysenteric diseases. We also received small quantities of"okra, " a plant peculiar to the South, whose pods contained amucilaginous matter that made a soup very grateful to those sufferingfrom scurvy. 

But all these ameliorations of condition were too slight to even arrestthe progress of the disease of the thousands of dying men brought outfrom the Stockade. These still wore the same lice-infested garments asin prison; no baths or even ordinary applications of soap and watercleaned their dirt-grimed skins, to give their pores an opportunity toassist in restoring them to health; even their long, lank and mattedhair, swarming with vermin, was not trimmed. The most ordinary andobvious measures for their comfort and care were neglected. If a manrecovered he did it almost in spite of fate. The medicines given werescanty and crude. The principal remedial agent--as far as my observationextended--was a rank, fetid species of unrectified spirits, which, I wastold, was made from sorgum seed. It had a light-green tinge, and wasabout as inviting to the taste as spirits of turpentine. It was given tothe sick in small quantities mixed with water. I had had some experiencewith Kentucky "apple-jack, " which, it was popularly believed among theboys, would dissolve a piece of the fattest pork thrown into it, but thatseemed balmy and oily alongside of this. After tasting some, I ceased towonder at the atrocities of Wirz and his associates. Nothing would seemtoo bad to a man who made that his habitual tipple. 

[For a more particular description of the Hospital I must refer my readerto the testimony of Professor Jones, in a previous chapter. ]

Certainly this continent has never seen--and I fervently trust it willnever again see--such a gigantic concentration of misery as that Hospitaldisplayed daily. The official statistics tell the story of this withterrible brevity: There were three thousand seven hundred and nine in theHospital in August; one thousand four hundred and eighty-nine--nearlyevery other man died. The rate afterwards became much higher than this. 

The most conspicuous suffering was in the gangrene wards. Horrible soresspreading almost visibly from hour to hour, devoured men's limbs andbodies. I remember one ward in which the alterations appeared to bealtogether in the back, where they ate out the tissue between the skinand the ribs. The attendants seemed trying to arrest the progress of thesloughing by drenching the sores with a solution of blue vitriol. Thiswas exquisitely painful, and in the morning, when the drenching was goingon, the whole hospital rang with the most agonizing screams. 

But the gangrene mostly attacked the legs and arms, and the led more thanthe arms. Sometimes it killed men inside of a week; sometimes theylingered on indefinitely. I remember one man in the Stockade who cut hishand with the sharp corner of a card of corn bread he was lifting fromthe ration wagon; gangrene set in immediately, and he died four daysafter. 

One form that was quit prevalent was a cancer of the lower one corner ofthe mouth, and it finally ate the whole side of the face out. Of coursethe sufferer had the greatest trouble in eating and drinking. For thelatter it was customary to whittle out a little wooden tube, and fastenit in a tin cup, through which he could suck up the water. As this mouthcancer seemed contagious, none of us would allow any one afflicted withit to use any of our cooking utensils. The Rebel doctors at the hospitalresorted to wholesale amputations to check the progress of the gangrene. 

They had a two hours session of limb-lopping every morning, each of whichresulted in quite a pile of severed members. I presume more bunglingoperations are rarely seen outside of Russian or Turkish hospitals. Their unskilfulness was apparent even to non-scientific observers likemyself. The standard of medical education in the South--as indeed ofevery other form of education--was quite low. The Chief Surgeon of theprison, Dr. Isaiah White, and perhaps two or three others, seemed to begentlemen of fair abilities and attainments. The remainder were of thatclass of illiterate and unlearning quacks who physic and blister the poorwhites and negros in the country districts of the South; who believe theycan stop bleeding of the nose by repeating a verse from the Bible; whothink that if in gathering their favorite remedy of boneset they cut thestem upwards it will purge their patients, and if downward it will vomitthem, and who hold that there is nothing so good for "fits" as a blackcat, killed in the dark of the moon, cut open, and bound while yet warm, upon the naked chest of the victim of the convulsions. 

They had a case of instruments captured from some of our field hospitals, which were dull and fearfully out of order. With poor instruments andunskilled hands the operations became mangling. 

In the Hospital I saw an admirable illustration of the affection which asailor will lavish on a ship's boy, whom he takes a fancy to, and makeshis "chicken, " as the phrase is. The United States sloop "Water Witch"had recently been captured in Ossabaw Sound, and her crew brought intoprison. One of her boys--a bright, handsome little fellow of aboutfifteen--had lost one of his arms in the fight. He was brought into theHospital, and the old fellow whose "chicken" he was, was allowed toaccompany and nurse him. This "old barnacle-back" was as surly a growleras ever went aloft, but to his "chicken" he was as tender and thoughtfulas a woman. They found a shady nook in one corner, and any moment onelooked in that direction he could see the old tar hard at work atsomething for the comfort and pleasure of his pet. Now he was dressingthe wound as deftly and gently as a mother caring for a new-born babe;now he was trying to concoct some relish out of the slender materials hecould beg or steal from the Quartermaster; now trying to arrange theshade of the bed of pine leaves in a more comfortable manner; nowrepairing or washing his clothes, and so on. 

All the sailors were particularly favored by being allowed to bring theirbags in untouched by the guards. This "chicken" had a wonderful supplyof clothes, the handiwork of his protector who, like most good sailors, was very skillful with the needle. He had suits of fine white duck, embroidered with blue in a way that would ravish the heart of a finelady, and blue suits similarly embroidered with white. No belle everkept her clothes in better order than these were. When the duck came upfrom the old sailor's patient washing it was as spotless as new-fallensnow. 

I found my chum in a very bad condition. His appetite was entirely gone, but he had an inordinate craving for tobacco--for strong, black plug--which he smoked in a pipe. He had already traded off all his brassbuttons to the guards for this. I had accumulated a few buttons to bribethe guard to take me out for wood, and I gave these also for tobacco forhim. When I awoke one morning the man who laid next to me on the rightwas dead, having died sometime during the night. I searched his pocketsand took what was in them. These were a silk pocket handkerchief, agutta percha finger-ring, a comb, a pencil, and a leather pocket-book, making in all quite a nice little "find. " I hied over to the guard, andsucceeded in trading the personal estate which I had inherited from theintestate deceased, for a handful of peaches, a handful of hardly ripefigs, and a long plug of tobacco. I hastened back to Watts, expectingthat the figs and peaches would do him a world of good. At first I didnot show him the tobacco, as I was strongly opposed to his using it, thinking that it was making him much worse. But he looked at thetempting peaches and figs with lack-luster eyes; he was too far gone tocare for them. He pushed them back to me, saying faintly:

"No, you take 'em, Mc; I don't want 'em; I can't eat 'em!"

I then produced the tobacco, and his face lighted up. Concluding thatthis was all the comfort that he could have, and that I might as wellgratify him, I cut up some of the weed, filled his pipe and lighted it. He smoked calmly and almost happily all the afternoon, hardly speaking aword to me. As it grew dark he asked me to bring him a drink. I did so, and as I raised him up he said:

"Mc, this thing's ended. Tell my father that I stood it as long as Icould, and----"

The death rattle sounded in his throat, and when I laid him back it wasall over. Straightening out his limbs, folding his hands across hisbreast, and composing his features as best I could, I lay, down besidethe body and slept till morning, when I did what little else I couldtoward preparing for the grave all that was left of my long-sufferinglittle friend. 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

DETERMINATION TO ESCAPE--DIFFERENT PLANS AND THEIR MERITS--I PREFER THEAPPALACHICOLA ROUTE--PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE--A HOT DAY--THE FENCEPASSED SUCCESSFULLY PURSUED BY THE HOUNDS--CAUGHT --RETURNED TO THESTOCKADE. 

After Watt's death, I set earnestly about seeing what could be done inthe way of escape. Frank Harvey, of the First West Virginia Cavalry, a boy of about my own age and disposition, joined with me in the scheme. I was still possessed with my original plan of making my way down thecreeks to the Flint River, down the Flint River to where it emptied intothe Appalachicola River, and down that stream to its debauchure into thebay that connected with the Gulf of Mexico. I was sure of finding my wayby this route, because, if nothing else offered, I could get astride of alog and float down the current. The way to Sherman, in the otherdirection, was long, torturous and difficult, with a fearful gauntlet ofblood-hounds, patrols and the scouts of Hood's Army to be run. I had butlittle difficulty in persuading Harvey into an acceptance of my views, and we began arranging for a solution of the first great problem--how toget outside of the Hospital guards. As I have explained before, theHospital was surrounded by a board fence, with guards walking their beatson the ground outside. A small creek flowed through the southern end ofthe grounds, and at its lower end was used as a sink. The boards of thefence came down to the surface of the water, where the Creek passed out, but we found, by careful prodding with a stick, that the hole between theboards and the bottom of the Creek was sufficiently large to allow thepassage of our bodies, and there had been no stakes driven or otherprecautions used to prevent egress by this channel. A guard was postedthere, and probably ordered to stand at the edge of the stream, but itsmelled so vilely in those scorching days that he had consulted hisfeelings and probably his health, by retiring to the top of the bank, a rod or more distant. We watched night after night, and at last weregratified to find that none went nearer the Creak than the top of thisbank. 

Then we waited for the moon to come right, so that the first part of thenight should be dark. This took several days, but at last we knew thatthe next night she would not rise until between 9 and 10 o'clock, whichwould give us nearly two hours of the dense darkness of a moonless Summernight in the South. We had first thought of saving up some rations forthe trip, but then reflected that these would be ruined by the filthywater into which we must sink to go under the fence. It was notdifficult to abandon the food idea, since it was very hard to forceourselves to lay by even the smallest portion of our scanty rations. 

As the next day wore on, our minds were wrought up into exalted tensionby the rapid approach of the supreme moment, with all its chances andconsequences. The experience of the past few months was not such as tomentally fit us for such a hazard. It prepared us for sullen, uncomplaining endurance, for calmly contemplating the worst that couldcome; but it did not strengthen that fiber of mind that leads toventuresome activity and daring exploits. Doubtless the weakness of ourbodies reacted upon our spirits. We contemplated all the perils thatconfronted us; perils that, now looming up with impending nearness, tooka clearer and more threatening shape than they had ever done before. 

We considered the desperate chances of passing the guard unseen; or, ifnoticed, of escaping his fire without death or severe wounds. Butsupposing him fortunately evaded, then came the gauntlet of the houndsand the patrols hunting deserters. After this, a long, weary journey, with bare feet and almost naked bodies, through an unknown countryabounding with enemies; the dangers of assassination by the embitteredpopulace; the risks of dying with hunger and fatigue in the gloomy depthsof a swamp; the scanty hopes that, if we reached the seashore, we couldget to our vessels. 

Not one of all these contingencies failed to expand itself to all itsalarming proportions, and unite with its fellows to form a dreadfulvista, like the valleys filled with demons and genii, dragons and malignenchantments, which confront the heros of the "Arabian Nights, " when theyset out to perform their exploits. 

But behind us lay more miseries and horrors than a riotous imaginationcould conceive; before us could certainly be nothing worse. We would putlife and freedom to the hazard of a touch, and win or lose it all. 

The day had been intolerably hot. The sun's rays seemed to sear theearth, like heated irons, and the air that lay on the burning sand wasbroken by wavy lines, such as one sees indicate the radiation from a hotstove. 

Except the wretched chain-gang plodding torturously back and forward onthe hillside, not a soul nor an animal could be seen in motion outsidethe Stockade. The hounds were panting in their kennel; the Rebelofficers, half or wholly drunken with villainous sorgum whisky, werestretched at full length in the shade at headquarters; the half-cakedgunners crouched under the shadow of the embankments of the forts, theguards hung limply over the Stockade in front of their little perches;the thirty thousand boys inside the Stockade, prone or supine upon theglowing sand, gasped for breath--for one draft of sweet, cool, wholesomeair that did not bear on its wings the subtle seeds of rank corruptionand death. Everywhere was the prostration of discomfort--the inertia ofsluggishness. 

Only the sick moved; only the pain-racked cried out; only the dyingstruggled; only the agonies of dissolution could make life assert itselfagainst the exhaustion of the heat. 

Harvey and I, lying in the scanty shade of the trunk of a tall pine, andwith hearts filled with solicitude as to the outcome of what the eveningwould bring us, looked out over the scene as we had done daily for longmonths, and remained silent for hours, until the sun, as if weary withtorturing and slaying, began going down in the blazing West. The groansof the thousands of sick around us, the shrieks of the rotting ones inthe gangrene wards rang incessantly in our ears. 

As the sun disappeared, and the heat abated, the suspended activity wasrestored. The Master of the Hounds came out with his yelping pack, andstarted on his rounds; the Rebel officers aroused themselves from theirsiesta and went lazily about their duties; the fifer produced his crackedfife and piped forth his unvarying "Bonnie Blue Flag, " as a signal fordress parade, and drums beaten by unskilled hands in the camps of thedifferent regiments, repeated the signal. In time Stockade the mass ofhumanity became full of motion as an ant hill, and resembled it very muchfrom our point of view, with the boys threading their way among theburrows, tents and holes. 

It was becoming dark quite rapidly. The moments seemed galloping onwardtoward the time when we must make the decisive step. We drew from thedirty rag in which it was wrapped the little piece of corn bread that wehad saved for our supper, carefully divided it into two equal parts, and each took one and ate it in silence. This done, we held a finalconsultation as to our plans, and went over each detail carefully, thatwe might fully understand each other under all possible circumstances, and act in concert. One point we laboriously impressed upon each other, and that was; that under no circumstances were we to allow ourselves tobe tempted to leave the Creek until we reached its junction with theFlint River. I then picked up two pine leaves, broke them off to unequallengths, rolled them in my hands behind my back for a second, andpresenting them to Harney with their ends sticking out of my closed hand, said:

"The one that gets the longest one goes first. "

Harvey reached forth and drew the longer one. 

We made a tour of reconnaissance. Everything seemed as usual, andwonderfully calm compared with the tumult in our minds. The Hospitalguards were pacing their beats lazily; those on the Stockade weredrawling listlessly the first "call around" of the evening:

"Post numbah foah! Half-past seven o'clock! and a-l-l's we-l-ll!"

Inside the Stockade was a Babel of sounds, above all of which rose themelody of religious and patriotic songs, sung in various parts of thecamp. From the headquarters came the shouts and laughter of the Rebelofficers having a little "frolic" in the cool of the evening. The groansof the sick around us were gradually hushing, as the abatement of theterrible heat let all but the worst cases sink into a brief slumber, from which they awoke before midnight to renew their outcries. But thosein the Gangrene wards seemed to be denied even this scanty blessing. Apparently they never slept, for their shrieks never ceased. A multitudeof whip-poor-wills in the woods around us began their usual dismal cry, which had never seemed so unearthly and full of dreadful presages as now. 

It was, now quite dark, and we stole noiselessly down to the Creek andreconnoitered. We listened. The guard was not pacing his beat, as wecould not hear his footsteps. A large, ill-shapen lump against the trunkof one of the trees on the bank showed that he was leaning there restinghimself. We watched him for several minutes, but he did not move, andthe thought shot into our minds that he might be asleep; but it seemedimpossible: it was too early in the evening. 

Now, if ever, was the opportunity. Harney squeezed my hand, steppednoiselessly into the Creek, laid himself gently down into the filthywater, and while my heart was beating so that I was certain it could beheard some distance from me, began making toward the fence. He passedunder easily, and I raised my eyes toward the guard, while on my strainedear fell the soft plashing made by Harvey as he pulled himself cautiouslyforward. It seemed as if the sentinel must hear this; he could not helpit, and every second I expected to see the black lump address itself tomotion, and the musket flash out fiendishly. But he did not; the lumpremained motionless; the musket silent. 

When I thought that Harvey had gained a sufficient distance I followed. It seemed as if the disgusting water would smother me as I laid myselfdown into it, and such was my agitation that it appeared almostimpossible that I should escape making such a noise as would attract theguard's notice. Catching hold of the roots and limbs at the side of thestream, I pulled myself slowly along, and as noiselessly as possible. 

I passed under the fence without difficulty, and was outside, and withinfifteen feet of the guard. I had lain down into the creek upon my rightside, that my face might be toward the guard, and I could watch himclosely all the time. 

As I came under the fence he was still leaning motionless against thetree, but to my heated imagination he appeared to have turned and bewatching me. I hardly breathed; the filthy water rippling past me seemedto roar to attract the guard's attention; I reached my hand outcautiously to grasp a root to pull myself along by, and caught instead adry branch, which broke with a loud crack. My heart absolutely stoodstill. The guard evidently heard the noise. The black lump separateditself from the tree, and a straight line which I knew to be his musketseparated itself from the lump. In a brief instant I lived a year ofmortal apprehension. So certain was I that he had discovered me, and wasleveling his piece to fire, that I could scarcely restrain myself fromspringing up and dashing away to avoid the shot. Then I heard him take astep, and to my unutterable surprise and relief, he walked off fartherfrom the Creek, evidently to speak to the man whose beat joined his. 

I pulled away more swiftly, but still with the greatest caution, untilafter half-an-hour's painful effort I had gotten fully one hundred andfifty yards away from the Hospital fence, and found Harney crouched on acypress knee, close to the water's edge, watching for me. 

We waited there a few minutes, until I could rest, and calm my perturbednerves down to something nearer their normal equilibrium, and thenstarted on. We hoped that if we were as lucky in our next step as in thefirst one we would reach the Flint River by daylight, and have a goodlong start before the morning roll-call revealed our absence. We couldhear the hounds still baying in the distance, but this sound was toocustomary to give us any uneasiness. 

But our progress was terribly slow. Every step hurt fearfully. TheCreek bed was full of roots and snags, and briers, and vines trailedacross it. These caught and tore our bare feet and legs, renderedabnormally tender by the scurvy. It seemed as if every step was markedwith blood. The vines tripped us, and we frequently fell headlong. Westruggled on determinedly for nearly an hour, and were perhaps a milefrom the Hospital. 

The moon came up, and its light showed that the creek continued itscourse through a dense jungle like that we had been traversing, while onthe high ground to our left were the open pine woods I have previouslydescribed. 

We stopped and debated for a few minutes. We recalled our promise tokeep in the Creek, the experience of other boys who had tried to escapeand been caught by the hounds. If we staid in the Creek we were sure thehounds would not find our trail, but it was equally certain that at thisrate we would be exhausted and starved before we got out of sight of theprison. It seemed that we had gone far enough to be out of reach of thepacks patrolling immediately around the Stockade, and there could be butlittle risk in trying a short walk on the dry ground. We concluded totake the chances, and, ascending the bank, we walked and ran as fast aswe could for about two miles further. 

All at once it struck me that with all our progress the hounds sounded asnear as when we started. I shivered at the thought, and though nearlyready to drop with fatigue, urged myself and Harney on. 

An instant later their baying rang out on the still night air rightbehind us, and with fearful distinctness. There was no mistake now; theyhad found our trail, and were running us down. The change from fearfulapprehension to the crushing reality stopped us stock-still in ourtracks. 

At the next breath the hounds came bursting through the woods in plainsight, and in full cry. We obeyed our first impulse; rushed back intothe swamp, forced our way for a few yards through the flesh-tearingimpediments, until we gained a large cypress, upon whose great knees weclimbed--thoroughly exhausted--just as the yelping pack reached the edgeof the water, and stopped there and bayed at us. It was a physicalimpossibility for us to go another step. 

In a moment the low-browed villain who had charge of the hounds camegalloping up on his mule, tooting signals to his dogs as he came, on thecow-horn slung from his shoulders. 

He immediately discovered us, covered us with his revolver, and yelledout:

"Come ashore, there, quick: you---- ---- ---- ----s!"

There was no help for it. We climbed down off the knees and startedtowards the land. As we neared it, the hounds became almost frantic, and it seemed as if we would be torn to pieces the moment they couldreach us. But the master dismounted and drove them back. He was surly--even savage--to us, but seemed in too much hurry to get back to waste anytime annoying us with the dogs. He ordered us to get around in front ofthe mule, and start back to camp. We moved as rapidly as our fatigue andour lacerated feet would allow us, and before midnight were again in thehospital, fatigued, filthy, torn, bruised and wretched beyond descriptionor conception. 

The next morning we were turned back into the Stockade as punishment. 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

AUGUST--GOOD LUCK IN NOT MEETING CAPTAIN WIRZ--THAT WORTHY'S TREATMENT OFRECAPTURED PRISONERS--SECRET SOCIETIES IN PRISON--SINGULAR MEETING ANDITS RESULT--DISCOVERY AND REMOVAL OF THE OFFICERS AMONG THE ENLISTED MEN. 

Harney and I were specially fortunate in being turned back into theStockade without being brought before Captain Wirz. 

We subsequently learned that we owed this good luck to Wirz's absence onsick leave--his place being supplied by Lieutenant Davis, a moderatebrained Baltimorean, and one of that horde of Marylanders in the RebelArmy, whose principal service to the Confederacy consisted in workingthemselves into "bomb-proof" places, and forcing those whom theydisplaced into the field. Winder was the illustrious head of this crowdof bomb-proof Rebels from "Maryland, My Maryland!" whose enthusiasm forthe Southern cause and consistency in serving it only in such places aswere out of range of the Yankee artillery, was the subject of many bitterjibes by the Rebels--especially by those whose secure berths theypossessed themselves of. 

Lieutenant Davis went into the war with great brashness. He was one ofthe mob which attacked the Sixth Massachusetts in its passage throughBaltimore, but, like all of that class of roughs, he got his stomach fullof war as soon as the real business of fighting began, and he retired towhere the chances of attaining a ripe old age were better than in frontof the Army of the Potomac's muskets. We shall hear of Davis again. 

Encountering Captain Wirz was one of the terrors of an abortive attemptto escape. When recaptured prisoners were brought before him he wouldfrequently give way to paroxysms of screaming rage, so violent as toclosely verge on insanity. Brandishing the fearful and wonderfulrevolver--of which I have spoken in such a manner as to threaten theluckless captives with instant death, he would shriek out imprecations, curses; and foul epithets in French, German and English, until he fairlyfrothed at the mouth. There were plenty of stories current in camp of hishaving several times given away to his rage so far as to actually shootmen down in these interviews, and still more of his knocking boys downand jumping upon them, until he inflicted injuries that soon resulted indeath. How true these rumors were I am unable to say of my own personalknowledge, since I never saw him kill any one, nor have I talked with anyone who did. There were a number of cases of this kind testified to uponhis trial, but they all happened among "paroles" outside the Stockade, or among the prisoners inside after we left, so I knew nothing of them. 

One of the Old Switzer's favorite ways of ending these seances was toinform the boys that he would have them shot in an hour or so, and bidthem prepare for death. After keeping them in fearful suspense for hourshe would order them to be punished with the stocks, the ball-and-chain, the chain-gang, or--if his fierce mood had burned itself entirely out--as was quite likely with a man of his shallop' brain and vacillatingtemper--to be simply returned to the stockade. 

Nothing, I am sure, since the days of the Inquisition--or still later, since the terrible punishments visited upon the insurgents of 1848 by theAustrian aristocrats--has been so diabolical as the stocks andchain-gangs, as used by Wirz. At one time seven men, sitting in thestocks near the Star Fort--in plain view of the camp--became objects ofinterest to everybody inside. They were never relieved from theirpainful position, but were kept there until all of them died. I thinkit was nearly two weeks before the last one succumbed. What theyendured in that time even imagination cannot conceive--I do not thinkthat an Indian tribe ever devised keener torture for its captives. 

The chain-gang consisted of a number of men--varying from twelve totwenty-five, all chained to one sixty-four pound ball. They were alsostationed near the Star Fort, standing out in the hot sun, without aparticle of shade over them. When one moved they all had to move. They were scourged with the dysentery, and the necessities of some oneof their number kept them constantly in motion. I can see themdistinctly yet, tramping laboriously and painfully back and forward overthat burning hillside, every moment of the long, weary Summer days. 

A comrade writes to remind me of the beneficent work of the MasonicOrder. I mention it most gladly, as it was the sole recognition on thepart of any of our foes of our claims to human kinship. The churches ofall denominations--except the solitary Catholic priest, Father Hamilton, --ignored us as wholly as if we were dumb beasts. Lay humanitarians wereequally indifferent, and the only interest manifested by any Rebel in thewelfare of any prisoner was by the Masonic brotherhood. The Rebel Masonsinterested themselves in securing details outside the Stockade in thecookhouse, the commissary, and elsewhere, for the brethren among theprisoners who would accept such favors. Such as did not feel inclined togo outside on parole received frequent presents in the way of food, andespecially of vegetables, which were literally beyond price. Materialswere sent inside to build tents for the Masons, and I think such as madethemselves known before death, received burial according to the rites ofthe Order. Doctor White, and perhaps other Surgeons, belonged to thefraternity, and the wearing of a Masonic emblem by a new prisoner waspretty sure to catch their eyes, and be the means of securing for thewearer the tender of their good offices, such as a detail into theHospital as nurse, ward-master, etc. 

I was not fortunate enough to be one of the mystic brethren, and somissed all share in any of these benefits, as well as in any others, and I take special pride in one thing: that during my whole imprisonmentI was not beholden to a Rebel for a single favor of any kind. The Rebeldoes not live who can say that he ever gave me so much as a handful ofmeal, a spoonful of salt, an inch of thread, or a stick of wood. From first to last I received nothing but my rations, except occasionaltrifles that I succeeded in stealing from the stupid officers chargedwith issuing rations. I owe no man in the Southern Confederacy gratitudefor anything--not even for a kind word. 

Speaking of secret society pins recalls a noteworthy story which has beentold me since the war, of boys whom I knew. At the breaking out ofhostilities there existed in Toledo a festive little secret society, such as lurking boys frequently organize, with no other object than funand the usual adolescent love of mystery. There were a dozen or somembers in it who called themselves "The Royal Reubens, " and were headedby a bookbinder named Ned Hopkins. Some one started a branch of theOrder in Napoleon, O. , and among the members was Charles E. Reynolds, of that town. The badge of the society was a peculiarly shaped gold pin. Reynolds and Hopkins never met, and had no acquaintance with each other. When the war broke out, Hopkins enlisted in Battery H, First OhioArtillery, and was sent to the Army of the Potomac, where he wascaptured, in the Fall of 1863, while scouting, in the neighborhood ofRichmond. Reynolds entered the Sixty-Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was taken in the neighborhood of Jackson, Miss. , --two thousand milesfrom the place of Hopkins's capture. At Andersonville Hopkins became oneof the officers in charge of the Hospital. One day a Rebel Sergeant, whocalled the roll in the Stockade, after studying Hopkins's pin a minute, said:

"I seed a Yank in the Stockade to-day a-wearing a pin egzackly like thatere. "

This aroused Hopkins's interest, and he went inside in search of theother "feller. " Having his squad and detachment there was littledifficulty in finding him. He recognized the pin, spoke to its wearer, gave him the "grand hailing sign" of the "Royal Reubens, " and it was dulyresponded to. The upshot of the matter was that he took Reynolds outwith him as clerk, and saved his life, as the latter was going down hillvery rapidly. Reynolds, in turn, secured the detail of a comrade of theSixty-Eighth who was failing fast, and succeeded in saving his life--allof which happy results were directly attributable to that insignificantboyish society, and its equally unimportant badge of membership. 

Along in the last of August the Rebels learned that there were betweentwo and three hundred Captains and Lieutenants in the Stockade, passingthemselves off as enlisted men. The motive of these officers wastwo-fold: first, a chivalrous wish to share the fortunes and fate of theirboys, and second, disinclination to gratify the Rebels by the knowledgeof the rank of their captives. The secret was so well kept that none ofus suspected it until the fact was announced by the Rebels themselves. They were taken out immediately, and sent to Macon, where thecommissioned officers' prison was. It would not do to trust suchpossible leaders with us another day. 

CHAPTER L. 

FOOD--THE MEAGERNESS, INFERIOR QUALITY, AND TERRIBLE SAMENESS--REBEL TESTIMONY ON THE SUBJECT--FUTILITY OF SUCCESSFUL EXPLANATION. 

I have in other places dwelt upon the insufficiency and the nauseousnessof the food. No words that I can use, no insistence upon this theme, cangive the reader any idea of its mortal importance to us. 

Let the reader consider for a moment the quantity, quality, and varietyof food that he now holds to be necessary for the maintenance of life andhealth. I trust that every one who peruses this book--that every one infact over whom the Stars and Stripes wave--has his cup of coffee, hisbiscuits and his beefsteak for breakfast--a substantial dinner of roastor boiled--and a lighter, but still sufficient meal in the evening. In all, certainly not less than fifty different articles are set beforehim during the day, for his choice as elements of nourishment. Let himscan this extended bill-of-fare, which long custom has made socommon-place as to be uninteresting--perhaps even wearisome to think about--and see what he could omit from it, if necessity compelled him. After areluctant farewell to fish, butter, eggs, milk, sugar, green andpreserved fruits, etc. , he thinks that perhaps under extraordinarycircumstances he might be able to merely sustain life for a limitedperiod on a diet of bread and meat three times a day, washed down withcreamless, unsweetened coffee, and varied occasionally with additions ofpotatos, onions, beans, etc. It would astonish the Innocent to have oneof our veterans inform him that this was not even the first stage ofdestitution; that a soldier who had these was expected to be on thesummit level of contentment. Any of the boys who followed Grant toAppomattox Court House, Sherman to the Sea, or "Pap" Thomas till hisglorious career culminated with the annihilation of Hood, will tell himof many weeks when a slice of fat pork on a piece of "hard tack" had todo duty for the breakfast of beefsteak and biscuits; when another sliceof fat pork and another cracker served for the dinner of roast beef andvegetables, and a third cracker and slice of pork was a substitute forthe supper of toast and chops. 

I say to these veterans in turn that they did not arrive at the firststages of destitution compared with the depths to which we were dragged. The restriction for a few weeks to a diet of crackers and fat pork wascertainly a hardship, but the crackers alone, chemists tell us, containall the elements necessary to support life, and in our Army they werealways well made and very palatable. I believe I risk nothing in sayingthat one of the ordinary square crackers of our Commissary Departmentcontained much more real nutriment than the whole of our average ration. 

I have before compared the size, shape and appearance of the daily halfloaf of corn bread issued to us to a half-brick, and I do not yet know ofa more fitting comparison. At first we got a small piece of rusty baconalong with this; but the size of this diminished steadily until at lastit faded away entirely, and during the last six months of ourimprisonment I do not believe that we received rations of meat above ahalf-dozen times. 

To this smallness was added ineffable badness. The meal was ground verycoarsely, by dull, weakly propelled stones, that imperfectly crushed thegrains, and left the tough, hard coating of the kernels in large, sharp, mica-like scales, which cut and inflamed the stomach and intestines, like handfuls of pounded glass. The alimentary canals of all compelledto eat it were kept in a continual state of irritation that usuallyterminated in incurable dysentery. 

That I have not over-stated this evil can be seen by reference to thetestimony of so competent a scientific observer as Professor Jones, and Iadd to that unimpeachable testimony the following extract from thestatement made in an attempted defense of Andersonville by Doctor R. Randolph Stevenson, who styles himself, formerly Surgeon in the Army ofthe Confederate States of America, Chief Surgeon of the ConfederateStates Military Prison Hospitals, Andersonville, Ga. :

V. From the sameness of the food, and from the action of the poisonousgases in the densely crowded and filthy Stockade and Hospital, the bloodwas altered in its constitution, even, before the manifestation of actualdisease. 

In both the well and the sick, the red corpuscles were diminished; and inall diseases uncomplicated with inflammation, the fibrinous element wasdeficient. In cases of ulceration of the mucous membrane of theintestinal canal, the fibrinous element of the blood appeared to beincreased; while in simple diarrhea, uncomplicated with ulceration, anddependent upon the character of the food and the existence of scurvy, it was either diminished or remained stationary. Heart-clots were verycommon, if not universally present, in the cases of ulceration of theintestinal mucous membrane; while in the uncomplicated cases of diarrheaand scurvy, the blood was fluid and did not coagulate readily, and theheart-clots and fibrinous concretions were almost universally absent. From the watery condition of the blood there resulted various serouseffusions into the pericardium, into the ventricles of the brain, andinto the abdominal cavity. 

In almost all cases which I examined after death, even in the mostemaciated, there was more or less serous effusion into the abdominalcavity. In cases of hospital gangrene of the extremities, and in casesof gangrene of the intestines, heart-clots and firm coagula wereuniversally present. The presence of these clots in the cases ofhospital gangrene, whilst they were absent in the cases in which therewere no inflammatory symptoms, appears to sustain the conclusion thathospital gangrene is a species of inflammation (imperfect and irregularthough it may be in its progress), in which the fibrinous element andcoagulability of the blood are increased, even in those who are sufferingfrom such a condition of the blood and from such diseases as arenaturally accompanied with a decrease in the fibrinous constituent. 

VI. The impoverished condition of the blood, which led to serouseffusions within the ventricles of the brain, and around the brain andspinal cord, and into the pericardial and abdominal cavities, wasgradually induced by the action of several causes, but chiefly by thecharacter of the food. 

The Federal prisoners, as a general rule, had been reared upon wheatbread and Irish potatos; and the Indian corn so extensively used at theSouth, was almost unknown to them as an article of diet previous to theircapture. Owing to the impossibility of obtaining the necessary sieves inthe Confederacy for the separation of the husk from the corn-meal, therations of the Confederate soldiers, as well as of the Federal prisoners, consisted of unbolted corn-flour, and meal and grist; this circumstancerendered the corn-bread still more disagreeable and distasteful to theFederal prisoners. While Indian meal, even when prepared with the husk, is one of the most wholesome and nutritious forms of food, as has beenalready shown by the health and rapid increase of the Southernpopulation, and especially of the negros, previous to the present war, and by the strength, endurance and activity of the Confederate soldiers, who were throughout the war confined to a great extent to unboltedcorn-meal; it is nevertheless true that those who have not been rearedupon corn-meal, or who have not accustomed themselves to its usegradually, become excessively tired of this kind of diet when suddenlyconfined to it without a due proportion of wheat bread. Large numbersof the Federal prisoners appeared to be utterly disgusted with Indiancorn, and immense piles of corn-bread could be seen in the Stockade andHospital inclosures. Those who were so disgusted with this form of foodthat they had no appetite to partake of it, except in quantitiesinsufficient to supply the waste of the tissues, were, of course, in thecondition of men slowly starving, notwithstanding that the onlyfarinaceous form of food which the Confederate States produced insufficient abundance for the maintenance of armies was not withheld fromthem. In such cases, an urgent feeling of hunger was not a prominentsymptom; and even when it existed at first, it soon disappeared, and wassucceeded by an actual loathing of food. In this state the muscularstrength was rapidly diminished, the tissues wasted, and the thin, skeleton-like forms moved about with the appearance of utter exhaustionand dejection. The mental condition connected with long confinement, with the most miserable surroundings, and with no hope for the future, also depressed all the nervous and vital actions, and was especiallyactive in destroying the appetite. The effects of mental depression, and of defective nutrition, were manifested not only in the slow, feeblemotions of the wasted, skeleton-like forms, but also in such lethargy, listlessness, and torpor of the mental faculties as rendered theseunfortunate men oblivious and indifferent to their afflicted condition. In many cases, even of the greatest apparent suffering and distress, instead of showing any anxiety to communicate the causes of theirdistress, or to relate their privations, and their longings for theirhomes and their friends and relatives, they lay in a listless, lethargic, uncomplaining state, taking no notice either of their owndistressed condition, or of the gigantic mass of human misery by whichthey were surrounded. Nothing appalled and depressed me so much as thissilent, uncomplaining misery. It is a fact of great interest, thatnotwithstanding this defective nutrition in men subjected to crowdingand filth, contagious fevers were rare; and typhus fever, which issupposed to be generated in just such a state of things as existed atAndersonville, was unknown. These facts, established by myinvestigations, stand in striking contrast with such a statement as thefollowing by a recent English writer:

"A deficiency of food, especially of the nitrogenous part, quickly leadsto the breaking up of the animal frame. Plague, pestilence and famineare associated with each other in the public mind, and the records ofevery country show how closely they are related. The medical history ofIreland is remarkable for the illustrations of how much mischief may beoccasioned by a general deficiency of food. Always the habitat of fever, it every now and then becomes the very hot-bed of its propagation anddevelopment. Let there be but a small failure in the usual imperfectsupply of food, and the lurking seeds of pestilence are ready to burstinto frightful activity. The famine of the present century is but tooforcible and illustrative of this. It fostered epidemics which have notbeen witnessed in this generation, and gave rise to scenes of devastationand misery which are not surpassed by the most appalling epidemics of theMiddle Ages. The principal form of the scourge was known as thecontagious famine fever (typhus), and it spread, not merely from end toend of the country in which it had originated, but, breaking through allboundaries, it crossed the broad ocean, and made itself painfullymanifest in localities where it was previously unknown. Thousands fellunder the virulence of its action, for wherever it came it struck down aseventh of the people, and of those whom it attacked, one out of nineperished. Even those who escaped the fatal influence of it, were leftthe miserable victims of scurvy and low fever. "

While we readily admit that famine induces that state of the system whichis the most susceptible to the action of fever poisons, and thus inducesthe state of the entire population which is most favorable for the rapidand destructive spread of all contagious fevers, at the same time we areforced by the facts established by the present war, as well as by a hostof others, both old and new, to admit that we are still ignorant of thecauses necessary for the origin of typhus fever. Added to the imperfectnature of the rations issued to the Federal prisoners, the difficultiesof their situation were at times greatly increased by the sudden anddesolating Federal raids in Virginia, Georgia, and other States, whichnecessitated the sudden transportation from Richmond and other pointsthreatened of large bodies of prisoners, without the possibility of muchprevious preparation; and not only did these men suffer in transitionupon the dilapidated and overburdened line of railroad communication, but after arriving at Andersonville, the rations were frequentlyinsufficient to supply the sudden addition of several thousand men. And as the Confederacy became more and more pressed, and when powerfulhostile armies were plunging through her bosom, the Federal prisoners ofAndersonville suffered incredibly during the hasty removal to Millen, Savannah, Charleston, and other points, supposed at the time to be securefrom the enemy. Each one of these causes must be weighed when an attemptis made to estimate the unusual mortality among these prisoners of war. 

VII. Scurvy, arising from sameness of food and imperfect nutrition, caused, either directly or indirectly, nine-tenths of the deaths amongthe Federal prisoners at Andersonville. 

Not only were the deaths referred to unknown causes, to apoplexy, toanasarca, and to debility, traceable to scurvy and its effects; and notonly was the mortality in small-pox, pneumonia, and typhoid fever, and inall acute diseases, more than doubled by the scorbutic taint, but eventhose all but universal and deadly bowel affections arose from the samecauses, and derived their fatal character from the same conditions whichproduced the scurvy. In truth, these men at Andersonville were in thecondition of a crew at sea, confined in a foul ship upon salt meat andunvarying food, and without fresh vegetables. Not only so, but theseunfortunate prisoners were men forcibly confined and crowded upon a shiptossed about on a stormy ocean, without a rudder, without a compass, without a guiding-star, and without any apparent boundary or to theirvoyage; and they reflected in their steadily increasing miseries thedistressed condition and waning fortunes of devastated and bleedingcountry, which was compelled, in justice to her own unfortunate sons, tohold these men in the most distressing captivity. 

I saw nothing in the scurvy which prevailed so universally atAndersonville, at all different from this disease as described by variousstandard writers. The mortality was no greater than that which hasafflicted a hundred ships upon long voyages, and it did not exceed themortality which has, upon me than one occasion, and in a much shorterperiod of time, annihilated large armies and desolated beleagueredcities. The general results of my investigations upon the chronicdiarrhea and dysentery of the Federal prisoners of Andersonville weresimilar to those of the English surgeons during the war against Russia. 

IX. Drugs exercised but little influence over the progress and fataltermination of chronic diarrhea and dysentery in the Military Prison andHospital at Andersonville, chiefly because the proper form of nourishment(milk, rice, vegetables, anti-scorbutics, and nourishing animal andvegetable soups) was not issued, and could not be procured in sufficientquantities for the sick prisoners. 

Opium allayed pain and checked the bowels temporarily, but the frail damwas soon swept away, and the patient appears to be but little better, if not the worse, for this merely palliative treatment. The root of thedifficulty could not be reached by drugs; nothing short of the wantingelements of nutrition would have tended in any manner to restore the toneof the digestive system, and of all the wasted and degenerated organs andtissues. My opinion to this effect was expressed most decidedly to themedical officers in charge of these unfortunate men. The correctness ofthis view was sustained by the healthy and robust condition of theparoled prisoners, who received an extra ration, and who were able tomake considerable sums by trading, and who supplied themselves with aliberal and varied diet. 

X. The fact that hospital gangrene appeared in the Stockade first, andoriginated spontaneously, without any previous contagion, and occurredsporadically all over the Stockade and Prison Hospital, was proofpositive that this disease will arise whenever the conditions ofcrowding, filth, foul air, and bad diet are present. 

The exhalations from the Hospital and Stockade appeared to exert theireffects to a considerable distance outside of these localities. The origin of gangrene among these prisoners appeared clearly to dependin great measure upon the state of the general system, induced by diet, exposure, neglect of personal cleanliness; and by various externalnoxious influences. The rapidity of the appearance and action of thegangrene depended upon the powers and state of the constitution, as wellas upon the intensity of the poison in the atmosphere, or upon the directapplication of poisonous matter to the wounded surface. This was furtherillustrated by the important fact, that hospital gangrene, or a diseaseresembling this form of gangrene, attacked the intestinal canal ofpatients laboring under ulceration of the bowels, although there were nolocal manifestations of gangrene upon the surface of the body. This modeof termination in cases of dysentery was quite common in the foulatmosphere of the Confederate States Military Prison Hospital; and in thedepressed, depraved condition of the system of these Federal prisoners, death ensued very rapidly after the gangrenous state of the intestineswas established. 

XI. A scorbutic condition of the system appeared to favor the origin offoul ulcers, which frequently took on true hospital gangrene. 

Scurvy and gangrene frequently existed in the same individual. In suchcases, vegetable diet with vegetable acids would remove the scorbuticcondition without curing the hospital gangrene. . . Scurvy consistsnot only in an alteration in the constitution of the blood, which leadsto passive hemorrhages from the bowels, and the effusion into the varioustissues of a deeply-colored fibrinous exudation; but, as we haveconclusively shown by postmortem examination, this state is attended withconsistence of the muscles of the heart, and the mucous membrane of thealimentary canal, and of solid parts generally. We have, according tothe extent of the deficiency of certain articles of food, every degree ofscorbutic derangement, from the most fearful depravation of the bloodand the perversion of every function subserved by the blood to thoseslight derangements which are scarcely distinguishable from a state ofhealth. We are as yet ignorant of the true nature of the changes of theblood and tissues in scurvy, and wide field for investigation is open forthe determination the characteristic changes--physical, chemical, andphysiological--of the blood and tissues, and of the secretions andexcretions of scurvy. Such inquiries would be of great value in theirbearing upon the origin of hospital gangrene. Up to the present war, the results of chemical investigations upon the pathology of the blood inscurvy were not only contradictory, but meager, and wanting in thatcareful detail of the cases from which the blood was abstracted whichwould enable us to explain the cause of the apparent discrepancies indifferent analyses. Thus it is not yet settled whether the fibrin isincreased or diminished in this disease; and the differences which existin the statements of different writers appear to be referable to theneglect of a critical examination and record of all the symptoms of thecases from which the blood was abstracted. The true nature of thechanges of the blood in scurvy can be established only by numerousanalyses during different stages of the disease, and followed up bycarefully performed and recorded postmortem examinations. With such datawe could settle such important questions as whether the increase offibrin in scurvy was invariably dependent upon some local inflammation. 

XII. Gangrenous spots, followed by rapid destruction of tissue, appearedin some cases in which there had been no previous or existing wound orabrasion; and without such well established facts, it might be assumedthat the disease was propagated from one patient to another in everycase, either by exhalations from the gangrenous surface or by directcontact. 

In such a filthy and crowded hospital as that of the Confederate, StatesMilitary Prison of Camp Sumter, Andersonville, it was impossible toisolate the wounded from the sources of actual contact of the gangrenousmatter. The flies swarming over the wounds and over filth of everydescription; the filthy, imperfectly washed, and scanty rags; the limitednumber of sponges and wash-bowls (the same wash-bowl and sponge servingfor a score or more of patients), were one and all sources of suchconstant circulation of the gangrenous matter, that the disease mightrapidly be propagated from a single gangrenous wound. While the factalready considered, that a form of moist gangrene, resembling hospitalgangrene, was quite common in this foul atmosphere in cases of dysentery, both with and without the existence of hospital gangrene upon thesurface, demonstrates the dependence of the disease upon the state of theconstitution, and proves in a clear manner that neither the contact ofthe poisonous matter of gangrene, nor the direct action of the poisonedatmosphere upon the ulcerated surface, is necessary to the development ofthe disease; on the other hand, it is equally well-established that thedisease may be communicated by the various ways just mentioned. It isimpossible to determine the length of time which rags and clothingsaturated with gangrenous matter will retain the power of reproducing thedisease when applied to healthy wounds. Professor Brugmans, as quoted byGuthrie in his commentaries on the surgery of the war in Portugal, Spain, France, and the Netherlands, says that in 1797, in Holland, 'charpie, 'composed of linen threads cut of different lengths, which, on inquiry, itwas found had been already used in the great hospitals in France, and hadbeen subsequently washed and bleached, caused every ulcer to which it wasapplied to be affected by hospital gangrene. Guthrie affirms in the samework, that the fact that this disease was readily communicated by theapplication of instruments, lint, or bandages which had been in contactwith infected parts, was too firmly established by the experience ofevery one in Portugal and Spain to be a matter of doubt. There are factsto show that flies may be the means of communicating malignant pustules. Dr. Wagner, who has related several cases of malignant pustule producedin man and beasts, both by contact and by eating the flesh of diseasedanimals, which happened in the village of Striessa in Saxony, in 1834, gives two very remarkable cases which occurred eight days after any beasthad been affected with the disease. Both were women, one of twenty-sixand the other of fifty years, and in them the pustules were well marked, and the general symptoms similar to the other cases. The latter patientsaid she had been bitten by a fly upon the back d the neck, at which partthe carbuncle appeared; and the former, that she had also been bittenupon the right upper arm by a gnat. Upon inquiry, Wagner found that theskin of one of the infected beasts had been hung on a neighboring wall, and thought it very possible that the insects might have been attractedto them by the smell, and had thence conveyed the poison. 

[End of Dr. Stevenson's Statement]

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

The old adage says that "Hunger is the best sauce for poor food, " buthunger failed to render this detestable stuff palatable, and it became soloathsome that very many actually starved to death because unable toforce their organs of deglutition to receive the nauseous dose and passit to the stomach. I was always much healthier than the average of theboys, and my appetite consequently much better, yet for the last monththat I was in Andersonville, it required all my determination to crowdthe bread down my throat, and, as I have stated before, I could only dothis by breaking off small bits at a time, and forcing each down as Iwould a pill. 

A large part of this repulsiveness was due to the coarseness and foulnessof the meal, the wretched cooking, and the lack of salt, but there was astill more potent reason than all these. Nature does not intend that manshall live by bread alone, nor by any one kind of food. She indicatesthis by the varying tastes and longings that she gives him. If his bodyneeds one kind of constituents, his tastes lead him to desire the foodthat is richest in those constituents. When he has taken as much as hissystem requires, the sense of satiety supervenes, and he "becomes tired"of that particular food. If tastes are not perverted, but allowed a freebut temperate exercise, they are the surest indicators of the way topreserve health and strength by a judicious selection of alimentation. 

In this case Nature was protesting by a rebellion of the tastes againstany further use of that species of food. She was saying, as plainly asshe ever spoke, that death could only be averted by a change of diet, which would supply our bodies with the constituents they so sadly needed, and which could not be supplied by corn meal. 

How needless was this confinement of our rations to corn meal, andespecially to such wretchedly prepared meal, is conclusively shown by theRebel testimony heretofore given. It would have been very little extratrouble to the Rebels to have had our meal sifted; we would gladly havedone it ourselves if allowed the utensils and opportunity. It would havebeen as little trouble to have varied our rations with green corn andsweet potatos, of which the country was then full. 

A few wagon loads of roasting ears and sweet potatos would have banishedevery trace of scurvy from the camp, healed up the wasting dysentery, and saved thousands of lives. Any day that the Rebels had chosen theycould have gotten a thousand volunteers who would have given their solemnparole not to escape, and gone any distance into the country, to gatherthe potatos and corn, and such other vegetables as were readilyobtainable, and bring, them into the camp. 

Whatever else may be said in defense of the Southern management ofmilitary prisons, the permitting seven thousand men to die of the scurvyin the Summer time, in the midst of an agricultural region, filled withall manner of green vegetation, must forever remain impossible ofexplanation. 

CHAPTER LI. 

SOLICITUDE AS TO THE FATE OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN'S ARMY--PAUCITY OF NEWS--HOW WE HEARD THAT ATLANTA HAD FALLEN--ANNOUNCEMENT OF A GENERALEXCHANGE--WE LEAVE ANDERSONVILLE. 

We again began to be exceedingly solicitous over the fate of Atlanta andSherman's Army: we had heard but little directly from that front forseveral weeks. Few prisoners had come in since those captured in thebloody engagements of the 20th, 22d, and 28th of July. In spite of theirconfident tones, and our own sanguine hopes, the outlook admitted of verygrave doubts. The battles of the last week of July had been looked at itin the best light possible--indecisive. Our men had held their own, it is true, but an invading army can not afford to simply hold its own. Anything short of an absolute success is to it disguised defeat. Then weknew that the cavalry column sent out under Stoneman had been so badlyhandled by that inefficient commander that it had failed ridiculously inits object, being beaten in detail, and suffering the loss of itscommander and a considerable portion of its numbers. This had beenfollowed by a defeat of our infantry at Etowah Creek, and then came along interval in which we received no news save what the Rebel paperscontained, and they pretended no doubt that Sherman's failure was alreadydemonstrated. Next came well-authenticated news that Sherman had raisedthe siege and fallen back to the Chattahoochee, and we felt something ofthe bitterness of despair. For days thereafter we heard nothing, thoughthe hot, close Summer air seemed surcharged with the premonitions of awar storm about to burst, even as nature heralds in the same way aconcentration of the mighty force of the elements for the grand crash ofthe thunderstorm. We waited in tense expectancy for the decision of thefates whether final victory or defeat should end the long and arduouscampaign. 

At night the guards in the perches around the Stockade called out everyhalf hour, so as to show the officers that they were awake and attendingto their duty. The formula for this ran thus:

"Post numbah 1; half-past eight o'clock, and a-l-l 's w-e-l-l!"

Post No. 2 repeated this cry, and so it went around. 

One evening when our anxiety as to Atlanta was wrought to the highestpitch, one of the guards sang out:

"Post numbah foah--half past eight o'clock--and Atlanta's--gone--t-o--hell. "

The heart of every man within hearing leaped to his mouth. We lookedtoward each other, almost speechless with glad surprise, and then gaspedout:

"Did 'you hear THAT?"

The next instant such a ringing cheer burst out as wells spontaneouslyfrom the throats and hearts of men, in the first ecstatic moments ofvictory--a cheer to which our saddened hearts and enfeebled lungs hadlong been strangers. It was the genuine, honest, manly Northern cheer, as different from the shrill Rebel yell as the honest mastiff'sdeep-voiced welcome is from the howl of the prowling wolf. 

The shout was taken up all over the prison. Even those who had not heardthe guard understood that it meant that "Atlanta was ours and fairlywon, " and they took up the acclamation with as much enthusiasm as we hadbegun it. All thoughts of sleep were put to flight: we would have aseason of rejoicing. Little knots gathered together, debated the news, and indulged in the most sanguine hopes as to the effect upon the Rebels. In some parts of the Stockade stump speeches were made. I believe thatBoston Corbett and his party organized a prayer and praise meeting. In our corner we stirred up our tuneful friend "Nosey, " who sang againthe grand old patriotic hymns that set our thin blood to bounding, and made us remember that we were still Union soldiers, with higher hopesthan that of starving and dying in Andersonville. He sang theever-glorious Star Spangled Banner, as he used to sing it around thecamp fire in happier days, when we were in the field. He sang therousing "Rally Round the Flag, " with its wealth of patriotic fire andmartial vigor, and we, with throats hoarse from shouting; joined in thechorus until the welkin rang again. 

The Rebels became excited, lest our exaltation of spirits would lead toan assault upon the Stockade. They got under arms, and remained so untilthe enthusiasm became less demonstrative. 

A few days later--on the evening of the 6th of September--the RebelSergeants who called the roll entered the Stockade, and each assemblinghis squads, addressed them as follows:

"PRISONERS: I am instructed by General Winder to inform you that ageneral exchange has been agreed upon. Twenty thousand men will beexchanged immediately at Savannah, where your vessels are now waiting foryou. Detachments from One to Ten will prepare to leave early to-morrowmorning. "

The excitement that this news produced was simply indescribable. I haveseen men in every possible exigency that can confront men, and a largeproportion viewed that which impended over them with at least outwardcomposure. The boys around me had endured all that we suffered withstoical firmness. Groans from pain-racked bodies could not be repressed, and bitter curses and maledictions against the Rebels leaped unbidden tothe lips at the slightest occasion, but there was no murmuring orwhining. There was not a day--hardly an hour--in which one did not seesuch exhibitions of manly fortitude as made him proud of belonging to arace of which every individual was a hero. 

But the emotion which pain and suffering and danger could not develop, joy could, and boys sang, and shouted and cried, and danced as if in adelirium. "God's country, " fairer than the sweet promised land of Canaanappeared to the rapt vision of the Hebrew poet prophet, spread out inglad vista before the mind's eye of every one. It had come--at last ithad come that which we had so longed for, wished for, prayed for, dreamedof; schemed, planned, toiled for, and for which went up the last earnest, dying wish of the thousands of our comrades who would now know noexchange save into that eternal "God's country" where

 Sickness and sorrow, pain and death Are felt and feared no more. 

Our "preparations, " for leaving were few and simple. When the morningcame, and shortly after the order to move, Andrews and I picked ourwell-worn blanket, our tattered overcoat, our rude chessmen, and no lessrude board, our little black can, and the spoon made of hoop-iron, andbade farewell to the hole-in-the-ground that had been our home fornearly seven long months. 

My feet were still in miserable condition from the lacerations receivedin the attempt to escape, but I took one of our tent poles as a staff andhobbled away. We re-passed the gates which we had entered on thatFebruary night, ages since, it seemed, and crawled slowly over to thedepot. 

I had come to regard the Rebels around us as such measureless liars thatmy first impulse was to believe the reverse of anything they said to us;and even now, while I hoped for the best, my old habit of mind was sostrongly upon me that I had some doubts of our going to be exchanged, simply because it was a Rebel who had said so. But in the crowd ofRebels who stood close to the road upon which we were walking was a youngSecond Lieutenant, who said to a Colonel as I passed:

"Weil, those fellows can sing 'Homeward Bound, ' can't they?"

This set my last misgiving at rest. Now I was certain that we were goingto be exchanged, and my spirits soared to the skies. 

Entering the cars we thumped and pounded toilsomely along, after themanner of Southern railroads, at the rate of six or eight miles an hour. Savannah was two hundred and forty miles away, and to our impatient mindsit seemed as if we would never get there. The route lay the wholedistance through the cheerless pine barrens which cover the greater partof Georgia. The only considerable town on the way was Macon, which hadthen a population of five thousand or thereabouts. For scores of milesthere would not be a sign of a human habitation, and in the one hundredand eighty miles between Macon and Savannah there were only threeinsignificant villages. There was a station every ten miles, at whichthe only building was an open shed, to shelter from sun and rain a casualpassenger, or a bit of goods. 

The occasional specimens of the poor white "cracker" population that wesaw, seemed indigenous products of the starved soil. They suited theirpoverty-stricken surroundings as well as the gnarled and scrubbyvegetation suited the sterile sand. Thin-chested, round-shouldered, scraggy-bearded, dull-eyed and open-mouthed, they all looked alike--alllooked as ignorant, as stupid, and as lazy as they were poor and weak. They were "low-downers" in every respect, and made our rough and simple. Minded East Tennesseans look like models of elegant and culturedgentlemen in contrast. 

We looked on the poverty-stricken land with good-natured contempt, for wethought we were leaving it forever, and would soon be in one which, compared to it, was as the fatness at Egypt to the leanness of the desertof Sinai. 

The second day after leaving Andersonville our train struggled across theswamps into Savannah, and rolled slowly down the live oak shaded streetsinto the center of the City. It seemed like another Deserted Village, so vacant and noiseless the streets, and the buildings everywhere soovergrown with luxuriant vegetation: The limbs of the shade trees crashedalong and broke, upon the tops of our cars, as if no train had passedthat way for years. Through the interstices between the trees and clumpsof foliage could be seen the gleaming white marble of the monumentserected to Greene and Pulaski, looking like giant tombstones in a City ofthe Dead. The unbroken stillness--so different from what we expected onentering the metropolis of Georgia, and a City that was an important portin Revolutionary days--became absolutely oppressive. We could notunderstand it, but our thoughts were more intent upon the coming transferto our flag than upon any speculation as to the cause of the remarkablesomnolence of Savannah. 

Finally some little boys straggled out to where our car was standing, andwe opened up a conversation with them:

"Say, boys, are our vessels down in the harbor yet?"

The reply came in that piercing treble shriek in which a boy of ten ortwelve makes even his most confidential communications:

"I don't know. "

"Well, " (with our confidence in exchange somewhat dashed, ) "they intendto exchange us here, don't they?"

Another falsetto scream, "I don't know. "

"Well, " (with something of a quaver in the questioner's voice, ) "what arethey going to do, with us, any way?"

"O, " (the treble shriek became almost demoniac) "they are fixing up aplace over by the old jail for you. "

What a sinking of hearts was there then! Andrews and I would not give uphope so speedily as some others did, and resolved to believe, for awhileat least, that we were going to be exchanged. 

Ordered out of the cars, we were marched along the street. A crowd ofsmall boys, full of the curiosity of the animal, gathered around us as wemarched. Suddenly a door in a rather nice house opened; an angry-facedwoman appeared on the steps and shouted out:

"Boys! BOYS! What are you doin' there! Come up on the steps immejitely!Come away from them n-a-s-t-y things!"

I will admit that we were not prepossessing in appearance; nor were we ascleanly as young gentlemen should habitually be; in fact, I may as wellconfess that I would not now, if I could help it, allow a tramp, asdilapidated in raiment, as unwashed, unshorn, uncombed, and populous withinsects as we were, to come within several rods of me. Nevertheless, it was not pleasant to hear so accurate a description of our personalappearance sent forth on the wings of the wind by a shrill-voiced Rebelfemale. 

A short march brought us to the place "they were fixing for us by the oldjail. " It was another pen, with high walls of thick pine plank, whichtold us only too plainly how vain were our expectations of exchange. 

When we were turned inside, and I realized that the gates of anotherprison had closed upon me, hope forsook me. I flung our odious littlepossessions-our can, chess-board, overcoat, and blanket-upon the ground, and, sitting down beside them, gave way to the bitterest despair. I wanted to die, O, so badly. Never in all my life had I desiredanything in the world so much as I did now to get out of it. Had I hadpistol, knife, rope, or poison, I would have ended my prison life thenand there, and departed with the unceremoniousness of a French leave. I remembered that I could get a quietus from a guard with very littletrouble, but I would not give one of the bitterly hated Rebels thetriumph of shooting me. I longed to be another Samson, with the wholeSouthern Confederacy gathered in another Temple of Dagon, that I mightpull down the supporting pillars, and die happy in slaying thousands ofmy enemies. 

While I was thus sinking deeper and deeper in the Slough of Despond, thefiring of a musket, and the shriek of the man who was struck, attractedmy attention. Looking towards the opposite end of the pen I saw a guardbringing his still smoking musket to a "recover arms, " and, not fifteenfeet from him, a prisoner lying on the ground in the agonies of death. The latter had a pipe in his mouth when he was shot, and his teeth stillclenched its stem. His legs and arms were drawn up convulsively, and hewas rocking backward and forward on his back. The charge had struck himjust above the hip-bone. 

The Rebel officer in command of the guard was sitting on his horse insidethe pen at the time, and rode forward to see what the matter was. Lieutenant Davis, who had come with us from Andersonville, was alsositting on a horse inside the prison, and he called out in his usualharsh, disagreeable voice:

"That's all right, Cunnel; the man's done just as I awdahed him to. "

I found that lying around inside were a number of bits of plank--eachabout five feet long, which had been sawed off by the carpenters engagedin building the prison. The ground being a bare common, was destitute ofall shelter, and the pieces looked as if they would be quite useful inbuilding a tent. There may have been an order issued forbidding theprisoners to touch them, but if so, I had not heard it, and I imagine thefirst intimation to the prisoner just killed that the boards were not tobe taken was the bullet which penetrated his vitals. Twenty-five centswould be a liberal appraisement of the value of the lumber for which theboy lost his life. 

Half an hour afterward we thought we saw all the guards march out of thefront gate. There was still another pile of these same kind of pieces ofboard lying at the further side of the prison. The crowd around menoticed it, and we all made a rush for it. In spite of my lame feet Ioutstripped the rest, and was just in the act of stooping down to pickthe boards up when a loud yell from those behind startled me. Glancingto my left I saw a guard cocking his gun and bringing it up to shoot me. With one frightened spring, as quick as a flash, and before he couldcover me, I landed fully a rod back in the crowd, and mixed with it. The fellow tried hard to draw a bead on me, but I was too quick for him, and he finally lowered his gun with an oath expressive of disappointmentin not being able to kill a Yankee. 

Walking back to my place the full ludicrousness of the thing dawned uponme so forcibly that I forgot all about my excitement and scare, andlaughed aloud. Here, not an hour age I was murmuring because I couldfind no way to die; I sighed for death as a bridegroom for the coming ofhis bride, an yet, when a Rebel had pointed his gun at me, it had nearlyscared me out of a year's growth, and made me jump farther than I couldpossibly do when my feet were well, and I was in good conditionotherwise. 

CHAPTER LII. 

SAVANNAH--DEVICES TO OBTAIN MATERIALS FOR A TENT--THEIR ULTIMATE SUCCESS--RESUMPTION OF TUNNELING--ESCAPING BY WHOLESALE AND BEING RECAPTURED ENMASSE--THE OBSTACLES THAT LAY BETWEEN US AND OUR LINES. 

Andrews and I did not let the fate of the boy who was killed, nor my ownnarrow escape from losing the top of my head, deter us from fartherefforts to secure possession of those coveted boards. My readersremember the story of the boy who, digging vigorously at a hole, repliedto the remark of a passing traveler that there was probably no ground-hogthere, and, even if there was, "ground-hog was mighty poor eatin', anyway, " with:

"Mister, there's got to be a ground-hog there; our family's out o' meat!"

That was what actuated us: we were out of material for a tent. Oursolitary blanket had rotted and worn full of holes by its long doubleduty, as bed-clothes and tent at Andersonville, and there was animperative call for a substitute. 

Andrews and I flattered ourselves that when we matched our collective orindividual wits against those of a Johnny his defeat was pretty certain, and with this cheerful estimate of our own powers to animate us, we setto work to steal the boards from under the guard's nose. The Johnny hadmalice in his heart and buck-and-ball in his musket, but his eyes werenot sufficiently numerous to adequately discharge all the duties laidupon him. He had too many different things to watch at the same time. I would approach a gap in the fence not yet closed as if I intendedmaking a dash through it for liberty, and when the Johnny hadconcentrated all his attention on letting me have the contents of his gunjust as soon as he could have a reasonable excuse for doing so, Andrewswould pick u a couple of boards and slip away with them. Then I wouldfall back in pretended (and some real) alarm, and--Andrew would come upand draw his attention by a similar feint, while I made off with a couplemore pieces. After a few hours c this strategy, we found ourselves thepossessors of some dozen planks, with which we made a lean-to, thatformed a tolerable shelter for our heads and the upper portion of ourbodies. As the boards were not over five feet long, and the slope reducethe sheltered space to about four-and-one-half feet, it left the lowerpart of our naked feet and legs to project out-of-doors. Andrews used tolament very touchingly the sunburning his toe-nails were receiving. He knew that his complexion was being ruined for life, and all the Balmof a Thousand Flowers in the world would not restore his comely ankles tothat condition of pristine loveliness which would admit of theirintroduction into good society again. Another defect was that, like thefun in a practical joke, it was all on one side; there was not enough ofit to go clear round. It was very unpleasant, when a storm came up in adirection different from that we had calculated upon, to be compelled toget out in the midst of it, and build our house over to face the otherway. 

Still we had a tent, and were that much better off than three-fourths ofour comrades who had no shelter at all. We were owners of a brown stonefront on Fifth Avenue compared to the other fellows. 

Our tent erected, we began a general survey of our new abiding place. The ground was a sandy common in the outskirts of Savannah. The sand wascovered with a light sod. The Rebels, who knew nothing of our burrowingpropensities, had neglected to make the plank forming the walls of thePrison project any distance below the surface of the ground, and had putup no Dead Line around the inside; so that it looked as if everything wasarranged expressly to invite us to tunnel out. We were not the boys toneglect such an invitation. By night about three thousand had beenreceived from Andersonville, and placed inside. When morning came itlooked as if a colony of gigantic rats had been at work. There was atunnel every ten or fifteen feet, and at least twelve hundred of us hadgone out through them during the night. I never understood why all inthe pen did not follow our example, and leave the guards watching aforsaken Prison. There was nothing to prevent it. An hour's industriouswork with a half-canteen would take any one outside, or if a boy was toolazy to dig his own tunnel, he could have the use of one of the hundredothers that had been dug. 

But escaping was only begun when the Stockade was passed. The site ofSavannah is virtually an island. On the north is the Savannah River; tothe east, southeast and south, are the two Ogeechee rivers, and a chainof sounds and lagoons connecting with the Atlantic Ocean. To the west isa canal connecting the Savannah and Big Ogeechee Rivers. We foundourselves headed off by water whichever way we went. All the bridgeswere guarded, and all the boats destroyed. Early in the morning theRebels discovered our absence, and the whole garrison of Savannah wassent out on patrol after us. They picked up the boys in squads of fromten to thirty, lurking around the shores of the streams waiting for nightto come, to get across, or engaged in building rafts for transportation. By evening the whole mob of us were back in the pen again. As nobody waspunished for running away, we treated the whole affair as a lark, andthose brought back first stood around the gate and yelled derisively asthe others came in. 

That night big fires were built all around the Stockade, and a line ofguards placed on the ground inside of these. In spite of thisprecaution, quite a number escaped. The next day a Dead Line was put upinside of the Prison, twenty feet from the Stockade. This only increasedthe labor of burrowing, by making us go farther. Instead of being ableto tunnel out in an hour, it now took three or four hours. That nightseveral hundred of us, rested from our previous performance, and hopefulof better luck, brought our faithful half canteens--now scoured verybright by constant use-into requisition again, and before the morning. Dawned we had gained the high reeds of the swamps, where we lay concealeduntil night. 

In this way we managed to evade the recapture that came to most of thosewho went out, but it was a fearful experience. Having been raised in acountry where venomous snakes abounded, I had that fear and horror ofthem that inhabitants of those districts feel, and of which people livingin sections free from such a scourge know little. I fancied that theSouthern swamps were filled with all forms of loathsome and poisonousreptiles, and it required all my courage to venture into them barefooted. Besides, the snags and roots hurt our feet fearfully. Our hope was tofind a boat somewhere, in which we could float out to sea, and trust tobeing picked up by some of the blockading fleet. But no boat could wefind, with all our painful and diligent search. We learned afterwardthat the Rebels made a practice of breaking up all the boats along theshore to prevent negros and their own deserters from escaping to theblockading fleet. We thought of making a raft of logs, but had we hadthe strength to do this, we would doubtless have thought it too risky, since we dreaded missing the vessels, and being carried out to sea toperish of hunger. During the night we came to the railroad bridgeacross the Ogeechee. We had some slender hope that, if we could reachthis we might perhaps get across the river, and find better opportunitiesfor escape. But these last expectations were blasted by the discoverythat it was guarded. There was a post and a fire on the shore next us, and a single guard with a lantern was stationed on one of the middlespans. Almost famished with hunger, and so weary and footsore that wecould scarcely move another step, we went back to a cleared place on thehigh ground, and laid down to sleep, entirely reckless as to what becameof us. Late in the morning we were awakened by the Rebel patrol andtaken back to the prison. Lieutenant Davis, disgusted with the perpetualattempts to escape, moved the Dead Line out forty feet from the Stockade;but this restricted our room greatly, since the number of prisoners inthe pen had now risen to about six thousand, and, besides, it offeredlittle additional protection against tunneling. 

It was not much more difficult to dig fifty feet than it had been to digthirty feet. Davis soon realized this, and put the Dead Line back totwenty feet. His next device was a much more sensible one. A crowd ofone hundred and fifty negros dug a trench twenty feet wide and five feetdeep around the whole prison on the outside, and this ditch was filledwith water from the City Water Works. No one could cross this withoutattracting the attention of the guards. 

Still we were not discouraged, and Andrews and I joined a crowd that wasconstructing a large tunnel from near our quarters on the east side ofthe pen. We finished the burrow to within a few inches of the edge ofthe ditch, and then ceased operations, to await some stormy night, whenwe could hope to get across the ditch unnoticed. 

Orders were issued to guards to fire without warning on men who wereobserved to be digging or carrying out dirt after nightfall. Theyoccasionally did so, but the risk did not keep anyone from tunneling. Our tunnel ran directly under a sentry box. When carrying dirt away thebearer of the bucket had to turn his back on the guard and walk directlydown the street in front of him, two hundred or three hundred feet, tothe center of the camp, where he scattered the sand around--so as to giveno indication of where it came from. Though we always waited till themoon went down, it seemed as if, unless the guard were a fool, both bynature and training, he could not help taking notice of what was going onunder his eyes. I do not recall any more nervous promenades in my life, than those when, taking my turn, I received my bucket of sand at themouth of the tunnel, and walked slowly away with it. The mostdisagreeable part was in turning my back to the guard. Could I havefaced him, I had sufficient confidence in my quickness of perception, and talents as a dodger, to imagine that I could make it difficult forhim to hit me. But in walling with my back to him I was wholly at hismercy. Fortune, however, favored us, and we were allowed to go on withour work--night after night--without a shot. 

In the meanwhile another happy thought slowly gestated in Davis's allegedintellect. How he came to give birth to two ideas with no more than aweek between them, puzzled all who knew him, and still more that hesurvived this extraordinary strain upon the gray matter of the cerebrum. His new idea was to have driven a heavily-laden mule cart around theinside of the Dead Line at least once a day. The wheels or the mule'sfeet broke through the thin sod covering the tunnels and exposed them. Our tunnel went with the rest, and those of our crowd who wore shoes hadhumiliation added to sorrow by being compelled to go in and spade thehole full of dirt. This put an end to subterranean engineering. 

One day one of the boys watched his opportunity, got under the rationwagon, and clinging close to the coupling pole with hands and feet, wascarried outside. He was detected, however, as he came from under thewagon, and brought back. 

CHAPTER LIII. 

FRANK REVERSTOCK'S ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE--PASSING OFF AS REBEL BOY HE REACHESGRISWOLDVILLE BY RAIL, AND THEN STRIKES ACROSS THE COUNTRY FOR SHERMAN, BUT IS CAUGHT WITHIN TWENTY MILES OF OUR LINES. 

One of the shrewdest and nearest successful attempts to escape that cameunder my notice was that of my friend Sergeant Frank Reverstock, of theThird West Virginia Cavalry, of whom I have before spoken. Frank, whowas quite small, with a smooth boyish face, had converted to his own usea citizen's coat, belonging to a young boy, a Sutler's assistant, who haddied in Andersonville. He had made himself a pair of bag pantaloons anda shirt from pieces of meal sacks which he had appropriated from day today. He had also the Sutler's assistant's shoes, and, to crown all, hewore on his head one of those hideous looking hats of quilted calicowhich the Rebels had taken to wearing in the lack of felt hats, whichthey could neither make nor buy. Altogether Frank looked enough like aRebel to be dangerous to trust near a country store or a stable full ofhorses. When we first arrived in the prison quite a crowd of theSavannahians rushed in to inspect us. The guards had some difficulty inkeeping them and us separate. While perplexed with this annoyance, oneof them saw Frank standing in our crowd, and, touching him with hisbayonet, said, with some sharpness:

"See heah; you must stand back; you musn't crowd on them prisoners so. "

Frank stood back. He did it promptly but calmly, and then, as if hiscuriosity as to Yankees was fully satisfied, he walked slowly away up thestreet, deliberating as he went on a plan for getting out of the City. He hit upon an excellent one. Going to the engineer of a freight trainmaking ready to start back to Macon, he told him that his father wasworking in the Confederate machine shops at Griswoldville, near Macon;that he himself was also one of the machinists employed there, anddesired to go thither but lacked the necessary means to pay his passage. If the engineer would let him ride up on the engine he would do workenough to pay the fare. Frank told the story ingeniously, the engineerand firemen were won over, and gave their consent. 

No more zealous assistant ever climbed upon a tender than Frank proved tobe. He loaded wood with a nervous industry, that stood him in place ofgreat strength. He kept the tender in perfect order, and anticipated, as far as possible, every want of the engineer and his assistant. Theywere delighted with him, and treated him with the greatest kindness, dividing their food with him, and insisting that he should share theirbed when they "laid by" for the night. Frank would have gladly declinedthis latter kindness with thanks, as he was conscious that the quantityof "graybacks" his clothing contained did not make him a very desirablesleeping companion for any one, but his friends were so pressing that hewas compelled to accede. 

His greatest trouble was a fear of recognition by some one of theprisoners that were continually passing by the train load, on their wayfrom Andersonville to other prisons. He was one of the best known of theprisoners in Andersonville; bright, active, always cheerful, and foreverin motion during waking hours, --every one in the Prison speedily becamefamiliar with him, and all addressed him as "Sergeant Frankie. " If anyone on the passing trains had caught a glimpse of him, that glimpse wouldhave been followed almost inevitably with a shout of:

"Hello, Sergeant Frankie! What are you doing there?"

Then the whole game would have been up. Frank escaped this by persistentwatchfulness, and by busying himself on the opposite side of the engine, with his back turned to the other trains. 

At last when nearing Griswoldville, Frank, pointing to a large whitehouse at some distance across the fields, said:

"Now, right over there is where my uncle lives, and I believe I'll justrun over and see him, and then walk into Griswoldville. "

He thanked his friends fervently for their kindness, promised to call andsee them frequently, bade them good by, and jumped off the train. 

He walked towards the white house as long as he thought he could be seen, and then entered a large corn field and concealed himself in a thicket inthe center of it until dark, when he made his way to the neighboringwoods, and began journeying northward as fast as his legs could carryhim. When morning broke he had made good progress, but was terriblytired. It was not prudent to travel by daylight, so he gathered himselfsome ears of corn and some berries, of which he made his breakfast, andfinding a suitable thicket he crawled into it, fell asleep, and did notwake up until late in the afternoon. 

After another meal of raw corn and berries he resumed his journey, andthat night made still better progress. 

He repeated this for several days and nights--lying in the woods in theday time, traveling by night through woods, fields, and by-paths avoidingall the fords, bridges and main roads, and living on what he could gleanfrom the fields, that he might not take even so much risk as was involvedin going to the negro cabins for food. 

But there are always flaws in every man's armor of caution--even in soperfect a one as Frank's. His complete success so far had the naturaleffect of inducing a growing carelessness, which wrought his ruin. One evening he started off briskly, after a refreshing rest and sleep. He knew that he must be very near Sherman's lines, and hope cheered himup with the belief that his freedom would soon be won. 

Descending from the hill, in whose dense brushwood he had made his bedall day, he entered a large field full of standing corn, and made his waybetween the rows until he reached, on the other side, the fence thatseparated it from the main road, across which was another corn-field, that Frank intended entering. 

But he neglected his usual precautions on approaching a road, and insteadof coming up cautiously and carefully reconnoitering in all directionsbefore he left cover, he sprang boldly over the fence and strode out forthe other side. As he reached the middle of the road, his ears wereassailed with the sharp click of a musket being cocked, and the harshcommand:

"Halt! halt, dah, I say!"

Turning with a start to his left he saw not ten feet from him, a mountedpatrol, the sound of whose approach had been masked by the deep dust ofthe road, into which his horse's hoofs sank noiselessly. 

Frank, of course, yielded without a word, and when sent to the officer incommand he told the old story about his being an employee of theGriswoldville shops, off on a leave of absence to make a visit to sickrelatives. But, unfortunately, his captors belonged to that sectionthemselves, and speedily caught him in a maze of cross-questioning fromwhich he could not extricate himself. It also became apparent from hislanguage that he was a Yankee, and it was not far from this to theconclusion that he was a spy--a conclusion to which the proximity ofSherman's lines, then less than twenty miles distant-greatly assisted. 

By the next morning this belief had become so firmly fixed in the mindsof the Rebels that Frank saw a halter dangling alarmingly near, and heconcluded the wisest plan was to confess who he really was. 

It was not the smallest of his griefs to realize by how slight a chancehe had failed. Had he looked down the road before he climbed the fence, or had he been ten minutes earlier or later, the patrol would not havebeen there, he could have gained the next field unperceived, and two morenights of successful progress would have taken him into Sherman's linesat Sand Mountain. The patrol which caught him was on the look-out fordeserters and shirking conscripts, who had become unusually numeroussince the fall of Atlanta. 

He was sent back to us at Savannah. As he came into the prison gateLieutenant Davis was standing near. He looked sternly at Frank and hisRebel garments, and muttering, "By God, I'll stop this!" caught the coat by the tails, tore it to thecollar, and took it and his hat away from Frank. 

There was a strange sequel to this episode. A few weeks afterward aspecial exchange for ten thousand was made, and Frank succeeded in beingincluded in this. He was given the usual furlough from the paroled campat Annapolis, and went to his home in a little town near Mansfield, O. 

One day while on the cars going--I think to Newark, O. , he saw LieutenantDavis on the train, in citizens' clothes. He had been sent by the RebelGovernment to Canada with dispatches relating to some of the raids thenharassing our Northern borders. Davis was the last man in the world tosuccessfully disguise himself. He had a large, coarse mouth, that madehim remembered by all who had ever seen him. Frank recognized himinstantly and said:

"You are Lieutenant Davis?"

Davis replied:

"You are totally mistaken, sah, I am -----. "

Frank insisted that he was right. Davis fumed and blustered, but thoughFrank was small, he was as game as a bantam rooster, and he gave Davis tounderstand that there had been a vast change in their relative positions;that the one, while still the same insolent swaggerer, had not regimentsof infantry or batteries of artillery to emphasize his insolence, and theother was no longer embarrassed in the discussion by the immense odds infavor of his jailor opponent. 

After a stormy scene Frank called in the assistance of some othersoldiers in the car, arrested Davis, and took him to Camp Chase--nearColumbus, O. , --where he was fully identified by a number of paroledprisoners. He was searched, and documents showing the nature of hismission beyond a doubt, were found upon his person. 

A court martial was immediately convened for his trial. 

This found him guilty, and sentenced him to be hanged as a spy. 

At the conclusion of the trial Frank stepped up to the prisoner and said:

"Mr. Davis, I believe we're even on that coat, now. "

Davis was sent to Johnson's Island for execution, but influences wereimmediately set at work to secure Executive clemency. What they wereI know not, but I am informed by the Rev. Robert McCune, who was thenChaplain of the One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Ohio Infantry and the Postof Johnson's Island and who was the spiritual adviser appointed toprepare Davis for execution, that the sentence was hardly pronouncedbefore Davis was visited by an emissary, who told him to dismiss hisfears, that he should not suffer the punishment. 

It is likely that leading Baltimore Unionists were enlisted in his behalfthrough family connections, and as the Border State Unionists were thenpotent at Washington, they readily secured a commutation of his sentenceto imprisonment during the war. 

It seems that the justice of this world is very unevenly dispensed whenso much solicitude is shown for the life of such a man, and none at allfor the much better men whom he assisted to destroy. 

The official notice of the commutation of the sentence was not publisheduntil the day set for the execution, but the certain knowledge that itwould be forthcoming enabled Davis to display a great deal of bravado onapproaching what was supposed to be his end. As the reader can readilyimagine, from what I have heretofore said of him, Davis was the man toimprove to the utmost every opportunity to strut his little hour, and hedid it in this instance. He posed, attitudinized and vapored, so thatthe camp and the country were filled with stories of the wonderfulcoolness with which he contemplated his approaching fate. 

Among other things he said to his guard, as he washed himself elaboratelythe night before the day announced for the execution:

"Well, you can be sure of one thing; to-morrow night there will certainlybe one clean corpse on this Island. "

Unfortunately for his braggadocio, he let it leak out in some way that hehad been well aware all the time that he would not be executed. 

He was taken to Fort Delaware for confinement, and died there some timeafter. 

Frank Beverstock went back to his regiment, and served with it until theclose of the war. He then returned home, and, after awhile became abanker at Bowling Green, O. He was a fine business man and became veryprosperous. But though naturally healthy and vigorous, his systemcarried in it the seeds of death, sown there by the hardships ofcaptivity. He had been one of the victims of the Rebels' vaccination;the virus injected into his blood had caused a large part of his righttemple to slough off, and when it healed it left a ghastly cicatrix. 

Two years ago he was taken suddenly ill, and died before his friends hadany idea that his condition was serious. 

CHAPTER LIV. 

SAVANNAH PROVES TO BE A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER--ESCAPE FROM THE BRATS OFGUARDS--COMPARISON BETWEEN WIRZ AND DAVIS--A BRIEF INTERVAL OF GOODRATIONS--WINDER, THE MAN WITH THE EVIL EYE--THE DISLOYAL WORK OF ASHYSTER. 

After all Savannah was a wonderful improvement on Andersonville. We got away from the pestilential Swamp and that poisonous ground. Every mouthful of air was not laden with disease germs, nor every cup ofwater polluted with the seeds of death. The earth did not breedgangrene, nor the atmosphere promote fever. As only the more vigoroushad come away, we were freed from the depressing spectacle of every thirdman dying. The keen disappointment prostrated very many who had been ofaverage health, and I imagine, several hundred died, but there werehospital arrangements of some kind, and the sick were taken away fromamong us. Those of us who tunneled out had an opportunity of stretchingour legs, which we had not had for months in the overcrowded Stockade wehad left. The attempts to escape did all engaged in them good, eventhough they failed, since they aroused new ideas and hopes, set the bloodinto more rapid circulation, and toned up the mind and system both. I had come away from Andersonville with considerable scurvy manifestingitself in my gums and feet. Soon these signs almost wholly disappeared. 

We also got away from those murderous little brats of Reserves, who guarded us at Andersonville, and shot men down as they would stoneapples out of a tree. Our guards now were mostly, sailors, from theRebel fleet in the harbor--Irishmen, Englishmen and Scandinavians, asfree hearted and kindly as sailors always are. I do not think they everfired a shot at one of us. The only trouble we had was with that portionof the guard drawn from the infantry of the garrison. They had the samerattlesnake venom of the Home Guard crowd wherever we met it, and shot usdown at the least provocation. Fortunately they only formed a small partof the sentinels. 

Best of all, we escaped for a while from the upas-like shadow of Winderand Wirz, in whose presence strong men sickened and died, as when nearsome malign genii of an Eastern story. The peasantry of Italy believedfirmly in the evil eye. Did they ever know any such men as Winder andhis satellite, I could comprehend how much foundation they could have forsuch a belief. 

Lieutenant Davis had many faults, but there was no comparison between himand the Andersonville commandant. He was a typical young Southern man;ignorant and bumptious as to the most common matters of school-boyknowledge, inordinately vain of himself and his family, coarse in tastesand thoughts, violent in his prejudices, but after all with some streaksof honor and generosity that made the widest possible difference betweenhim and Wirz, who never had any. As one of my chums said to me:

"Wirz is the most even-tempered man I ever knew; he's always foamingmad. "

This was nearly the truth. I never saw Wirz when he was not angry;if not violently abusive, he was cynical and sardonic. Never, in mylittle experience with him did I detect a glint of kindly, generoushumanity; if he ever was moved by any sight of suffering its exhibitionin his face escaped my eye. If he ever had even a wish to mitigate thepain or hardship of any man the expression of such wish never fell on myear. How a man could move daily through such misery as he encountered, and never be moved by it except to scorn and mocking is beyond my limitedunderstanding. 

Davis vapored a great deal, swearing big round oaths in the broadest ofSouthern patois; he was perpetually threatening to:

"Open on ye wid de ahtillery, " but the only death that I knew him todirectly cause or sanction was that I have described in the previouschapter. He would not put himself out of the way to annoy and oppressprisoners, as Wirz would, but frequently showed even a disposition tohumor them in some little thing, when it could be done without danger ortrouble to himself. 

By-and-by, however, he got an idea that there was some money to be madeout of the prisoners, and he set his wits to work in this direction. One day, standing at the gate, he gave one of his peculiar yells that heused to attract the attention of the camp with:

"Wh-ah-ye!!"

We all came to "attention, " and he announced:

"Yesterday, while I wuz in the camps (a Rebel always says camps, ) some ofyou prisoners picked my pockets of seventy-five dollars in greenbacks. Now, I give you notice that I'll not send in any moah rations till themoney's returned to me. "

This was a very stupid method of extortion, since no one believed that hehad lost the money, and at all events he had no business to have thegreenbacks, as the Rebel laws imposed severe penalties upon any citizen, and still more upon any soldier dealing with, or having in his possessionany of "the money of the enemy. " We did without rations until night, when they were sent in. There was a story that some of the boys in theprison had contributed to make up part of the sum, and Davis took it andwas satisfied. I do not know how true the story was. At another timesome of the boys stole the bridle and halter off an old horse that wasdriven in with a cart. The things were worth, at a liberal estimate, one dollar. Davis cut off the rations of the whole six thousand of usfor one day for this. We always imagined that the proceeds went into hispocket. 

A special exchange was arranged between our Navy Department and that ofthe Rebels, by which all seamen and marines among us were exchanged. Lists of these were sent to the different prisons and the men called for. About three-fourths of them were dead, but many soldiers divining, thesituation of affairs, answered to the dead men's names, went away withthe squad and were exchanged. Much of this was through the connivance ofthe Rebel officers, who favored those who had ingratiated themselves withthem. In many instances money was paid to secure this privilege, and Ihave been informed on good authority that Jack Huckleby, of the EighthTennessee, and Ira Beverly, of the One Hundredth Ohio, who kept the bigsutler shop on the North Side at Andersonville, paid Davis five hundreddollars each to be allowed to go with the sailors. As for Andrews andme, we had no friends among the Rebels, nor money to bribe with, so westood no show. 

The rations issued to us for some time after our arrival seemed riotousluxury to what we had been getting at Andersonville. Each of us receiveddaily a half-dozen rude and coarse imitations of our fondly-rememberedhard tack, and with these a small piece of meat or a few spoonfuls ofmolasses, and a quart or so of vinegar, and several plugs of tobacco foreach "hundred. " How exquisite was the taste of the crackers andmolasses!

It was the first wheat bread I had eaten since my entry into Richmond--nine months before--and molasses had been a stranger to me for years. After the corn bread we had so long lived upon, this was manna. It seemsthat the Commissary at Savannah labored under the delusion that he mustissue to us the same rations as were served out to the Rebel soldiers andsailors. It was some little time before the fearful mistake came to theknowledge of Winder. I fancy that the news almost threw him into anapoplectic fit. Nothing, save his being ordered to the front, could havecaused him such poignant sorrow as the information that so much good foodhad been worse than wasted in undoing his work by building up the bodiesof his hated enemies. 

Without being told, we knew that he had been heard from when the tobacco, vinegar and molasses failed to come in, and the crackers gave way to cornmeal. Still this was a vast improvement on Andersonville, as the mealwas fine and sweet, and we each had a spoonful of salt issued to usregularly. 

I am quite sure that I cannot make the reader who has not had anexperience similar to ours comprehend the wonderful importance to us ofthat spoonful of salt. Whether or not the appetite for salt be, as somescientists claim, a purely artificial want, one thing is certain, andthat is, that either the habit of countless generations or some othercause, has so deeply ingrained it into our common nature, that it hascome to be nearly as essential as food itself, and no amount ofdeprivation can accustom us to its absence. Rather, it seemed that thelonger we did without it the more overpowering became our craving. I could get along to-day and to-morrow, perhaps the whole week, withoutsalt in my food, since the lack would be supplied from the excess I hadalready swallowed, but at the end of that time Nature would begin todemand that I renew the supply of saline constituent of my tissues, andshe would become more clamorous with every day that I neglected herbidding, and finally summon Nausea to aid Longing. 

The light artillery of the garrison of Savannah--four batteries, twenty-four pieces--was stationed around three sides of the prison, theguns unlimbered, planted at convenient distance, and trained upon us, ready for instant use. We could see all the grinning mouths through thecracks in the fence. There were enough of them to send us as high asthe traditional kite flown by Gilderoy. The having at his beck thisarray of frowning metal lent Lieutenant Davis such an importance in hisown eyes that his demeanor swelled to the grandiose. It became veryamusing to see him puff up and vaunt over it, as he did on everypossible occasion. For instance, finding a crowd of several hundredlounging around the gate, he would throw open the wicket, stalk in withthe air of a Jove threatening a rebellious world with the dread thundersof heaven, and shout:

"W-h-a-a y-e-e! Prisoners, I give you jist two minutes to cleah awayfrom this gate, aw I'll open on ye wid de ahtillery!"

One of the buglers of the artillery was a superb musician--evidently someold "regular" whom the Confederacy had seduced into its service, and hisinstrument was so sweet toned that we imagined that it was made ofsilver. The calls he played were nearly the same as we used in thecavalry, and for the first few days we became bitterly homesick everytime he sent ringing out the old familiar signals, that to us were soclosely associated with what now seemed the bright and happy days when wewere in the field with our battalion. If we were only back in thevalleys of Tennessee with what alacrity we would respond to that"assembly;" no Orderly's patience would be worn out in getting laggardsand lazy ones to "fall in for roll-call;" how eagerly we would attend to"stable duty;" how gladly mount our faithful horses and ride away to"water, " and what bareback races ride, going and coming. We would beeven glad to hear "guard" and "drill" sounded; and there would be musicin the disconsolate "surgeon's call:"

 "Come-get-your-q-n-i-n-i-n-e; come, get your quinine; It'll make you sad: It'll make you sick. Come, come. "

O, if we were only back, what admirable soldiers we would be!One morning, about three or four o'clock, we were awakened by the groundshaking and a series of heavy, dull thumps sounding oft seaward. Our silver-voiced bugler seemed to be awakened, too. He set the echoesringing with a vigorously played "reveille;" a minute later came anequally earnest "assembly, " and when "boots and saddles" followed, weknew that all was not well in Denmark; the thumping and shaking now hada significance. It meant heavy Yankee guns somewhere near. We heard thegunners hitching up; the bugle signal "forward, " the wheels roll off, and for a half hour afterwards we caught the receding sound of the buglecommanding "right turn, " "left turn, " etc. , as the batteries marchedaway. Of course, we became considerably wrought up over the matter, as we fancied that, knowing we were in Savannah, our vessels were tryingto pass up to the City and take it. The thumping and shaking continueduntil late in the afternoon. 

We subsequently learned that some of our blockaders, finding time bangingheavy upon their hands, had essayed a little diversion by knocking FortsJackson and Bledsoe--two small forts defending the passage of theSavannah--about their defenders' ears. After capturing the forts ourfolks desisted and came no farther. 

Quite a number of the old Raider crowd had come with us fromAndersonville. Among these was the shyster, Peter Bradley. They kept uptheir old tactics of hanging around the gates, and currying favor withthe Rebels in every possible way, in hopes to get paroles outside orother favors. The great mass of the prisoners were so bitter against theRebels as to feel that they would rather die than ask or accept a favorfrom their hands, and they had little else than contempt for thesetrucklers. The raider crowd's favorite theme of conversation with theRebels was the strong discontent of the boys with the manner of theirtreatment by our Government. The assertion that there was any suchwidespread feeling was utterly false. We all had confidence--as wecontinue to have to this day--that our Government would do everything forus possible, consistent with its honor, and the success of militaryoperations, and outside of the little squad of which I speak, not anadmission could be extracted from anybody that blame could be attached toany one, except the Rebels. It was regarded as unmanly andunsoldier-like to the last degree, as well as senseless, to revile ourGovernment for the crimes committed by its foes. 

But the Rebels were led to believe that we were ripe for revolt againstour flag, and to side with them. Imagine, if possible, the stupiditythat would mistake our bitter hatred of those who were our deadlyenemies, for any feeling that would lead us to join hands with thoseenemies. One day we were surprised to see the carpenters erect a rudestand in the center of the camp. When it was finished, Bradley appearedupon it, in company with some Rebel officers and guards. We gatheredaround in curiosity, and Bradley began making a speech. 

He said that it had now become apparent to all of us that our Governmenthad abandoned us; that it cared little or nothing for us, since it couldhire as many more quite readily, by offering a bounty equal to the paywhich would be due us now; that it cost only a few hundred dollars tobring over a shipload of Irish, "Dutch, " and French, who were only tooglad to agree to fight or do anything else to get to this country. [Thepeculiar impudence of this consisted in Bradley himself being aforeigner, and one who had only come out under one of the later calls, and the influence of a big bounty. ]

Continuing in this strain he repeated and dwelt upon the old lie, alwaysin the mouths of his crowd, that Secretary Stanton and General Halleckhad positively refused to enter upon negotiations for exchange, becausethose in prison were "only a miserable lot of 'coffee-boilers' and'blackberry pickers, ' whom the Army was better off without. "

The terms "coffee-boiler, " and "blackberry-pickers" were considered theworst terms of opprobrium we had in prison. They were applied to thatclass of stragglers and skulkers, who were only too ready to givethemselves up to the enemy, and who, on coming in, told some gauzy storyabout "just having stopped to boil a cup of coffee, " or to do somethingelse which they should not have done, when they were gobbled up. It isnot risking much to affirm the probability of Bradley and most of hiscrowd having belonged to this dishonorable class. 

The assertion that either the great Chief-of-Staff or the still greaterWar-Secretary were even capable of applying such epithets to the mass ofprisoners is too preposterous to need refutation, or even denial. No person outside the raider crowd ever gave the silly lie a moment'stoleration. 

Bradley concluded his speech in some such language as this:

"And now, fellow prisoners, I propose to you this: that we unite ininforming our Government that unless we are exchanged in thirty days, wewill be forced by self-preservation to join the Confederate army. "

For an instant his hearers seemed stunned at the fellow's audacity, andthen there went up such a roar of denunciation and execration that theair trembled. The Rebels thought that the whole camp was going to rushon Bradley and tear him to pieces, and they drew revolvers and leveledmuskets to defend him. The uproar only ceased when Bradley was hurriedout of the prisons but for hours everybody was savage and sullen, andfull of threatenings against him, when opportunity served. We never sawhim afterward. 

Angry as I was, I could not help being amused at the tempestuous rage ofa tall, fine-looking and well educated Irish Sergeant of an Illinoisregiment. He poured forth denunciations of the traitor and the Rebels, with the vivid fluency of his Hibernian nature, vowed he'd "give a yearof me life, be J---s, to have the handling of the dirty spalpeen for tenminutes; be G-d, " and finally in his rage, tore off his own shirt andthrew it on the ground and trampled on it. 

Imagine my astonishment, some time after getting out of prison, to findthe Southern papers publishing as a defense against the charges in regardto Andersonville, the following document, which they claimed to have beenadopted by "a mass meeting of the prisoners:"

"At a mass meeting held September 28th, 1864, by the Federal prisonersconfined at Savannah, Ga. , it was unanimously agreed that the followingresolutions be sent to the President of the United States, in the hopethat he might thereby take such steps as in his wisdom he may thinknecessary for our speedy exchange or parole:

"Resolved, That while we would declare our unbounded love for the Union, for the home of our fathers, and for the graves of those we venerate, wewould beg most respectfully that our situation as prisoners be diligentlyinquired into, and every obstacle consistent with the honor and dignityof the Government at once removed. 

"Resolved, That while allowing the Confederate authorities all due praisefor the attention paid to prisoners, numbers of our men are dailyconsigned to early graves, in the prime of manhood, far from home andkindred, and this is not caused intentionally by the ConfederateGovernment, but by force of circumstances; the prisoners are forced to gowithout shelter, and, in a great portion of cases, without medicine. 

"Resolved, That, whereas, ten thousand of our brave comrades havedescended into an untimely grave within the last six months, and as webelieve their death was caused by the difference of climate, the peculiarkind and insufficiency of food, and lack of proper medical treatment;and, whereas, those difficulties still remain, we would declare as ourfirm belief, that unless we are speedily exchanged, we have noalternative but to share the lamentable fate of our comrades. Must thisthing still go on! Is there no hope?

"Resolved, That, whereas, the cold and inclement season of the year isfast approaching, we hold it to be our duty as soldiers and citizens ofthe United States, to inform our Government that the majority of ourprisoners ate without proper clothing, in some cases being almost naked, and are without blankets to protect us from the scorching sun by day orthe heavy dews by night, and we would most respectfully request theGovernment to make some arrangement whereby we can be supplied withthese, to us, necessary articles. 

"Resolved, That, whereas, the term of service of many of our comradeshaving expired, they, having served truly and faithfully for the term oftheir several enlistments, would most respectfully ask their Government, are they to be forgotten? Are past services to be ignored? Not havingseen their wives and little ones for over three years, they would mostrespectfully, but firmly, request the Government to make somearrangements whereby they can be exchanged or paroled. 

"Resolved, That, whereas, in the fortune of war, it was our lot to becomeprisoners, we have suffered patiently, and are still willing to suffer, if by so doing we can benefit the country; but we must most respectfullybeg to say, that we are not willing to suffer to further the ends of anyparty or clique to the detriment of our honor, our families, and ourcountry, and we beg that this affair be explained to us, that we maycontinue to hold the Government in that respect which is necessary tomake a good citizen and soldier. 

 "P. BRADLEY, "Chairman of Committee in behalf of Prisoners. "

In regard to the above I will simply say this, that while I cannotpretend to know or even much that went on around me, I do not think itwas possible for a mass meeting of prisoners to have been held withoutmy knowing it, and its essential features. Still less was it possiblefor a mass meeting to have been held which would have adopted any sucha document as the above, or anything else that a Rebel would have foundthe least pleasure in republishing. The whole thing is a brazenfalsehood. 

CHAPTER LV. 

WHY WE WERE HURRIED OUT OF ANDERSONVILLE--THE OF THE FALL OF ATLANTA--OUR LONGING TO HEAR THE NEWS--ARRIVAL OF SOME FRESH FISH--HOW WE KNEWTHEY WERE WESTERN BOYS--DIFFERENCE IN THE APPEARANCE OF THE SOLDIERS OFTHE TWO ARMIES. 

The reason of our being hurried out of Andersonville under the falsepretext of exchange dawned on us before we had been in Savannah long. If the reader will consult the map of Georgia he will understand this, too. Let him remember that several of the railroads which now appearwere not built then. The road upon which Andersonville is situated wasabout one hundred and twenty miles long, reaching from Macon to Americus, Andersonville being about midway between these two. It had noconnections anywhere except at Macon, and it was hundreds of miles acrossthe country from Andersonville to any other road. When Atlanta fell itbrought our folks to within sixty miles of Macon, and any day they wereliable to make a forward movement, which would capture that place, andhave us where we could be retaken with ease. 

There was nothing left undone to rouse the apprehensions of the Rebels inthat direction. The humiliating surrender of General Stoneman at Maconin July, showed them what our folks were thinking of, and awakened theirminds to the disastrous consequences of such a movement when executed bya bolder and abler commander. Two days of one of Kilpatrick's swift, silent marches would carry his hard-riding troopers around Hood's rightflank, and into the streets of Macon, where a half hour's work with thetorch on the bridges across the Ocmulgee and the creeks that enter it atthat point, would have cut all of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee'scommunications. Another day and night of easy marching would bring hisguidons fluttering through the woods about the Stockade at Andersonville, and give him a reinforcement of twelve or fifteen thousand able-bodiedsoldiers, with whom he could have held the whole Valley of theChattahoochie, and become the nether millstone, against which Shermancould have ground Hood's army to powder. 

Such a thing was not only possible, but very probable, and doubtlesswould have occurred had we remained in Andersonville another week. 

Hence the haste to get us away, and hence the lie about exchange, for, had it not been for this, one-quarter at least of those taken on the carswould have succeeded in getting off and attempted to have reachedSherman's lines. 

The removal went on with such rapidity that by the end of September onlyeight thousand two hundred and eighteen remained at Andersonville, andthese were mostly too sick to be moved; two thousand seven hundred diedin September, fifteen hundred and sixty in October, and four hundred andeighty-five in November, so that at the beginning of December there wereonly thirteen hundred and fifty-nine remaining. The larger part of thosetaken out were sent on to Charleston, and subsequently to Florence andSalisbury. About six or seven thousand of us, as near as I remember, were brought to Savannah. 

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

We were all exceedingly anxious to know how the Atlanta campaign hadended. So far our information only comprised the facts that a sharpbattle had been fought, and the result was the complete possession of ourgreat objective point. The manner of accomplishing this glorious end, the magnitude of the engagement, the regiments, brigades and corpsparticipating, the loss on both sides, the completeness of the victories, etc. , were all matters that we knew nothing of, and thirsted to learn. 

The Rebel papers said as little as possible about the capture, and thefacts in that little were so largely diluted with fiction as to convey noreal information. But few new, prisoners were coming in, and none ofthese were from Sherman. However, toward the last of September, ahandful of "fresh fish" were turned inside, whom our experienced eyesinstantly told us were Western boys. 

There was never any difficulty in telling, as far as he could be seen, whether a boy belonged to the East or the west. First, no one from theArmy of the Potomac was ever without his corps badge worn conspicuously;it was rare to see such a thing on one of Sherman's men. Then there wasa dressy air about the Army of the Potomac that was wholly wanting in thesoldiers serving west of the Alleghanies. 

The Army, of the Potomac was always near to its base of supplies, alwayshad its stores accessible, and the care of the clothing and equipments ofthe men was an essential part of its discipline. A ragged or shabbilydressed man was a rarity. Dress coats, paper collars, fresh woolenshirts, neat-fitting pantaloons, good comfortable shoes, and trim caps orhats, with all the blazing brass of company letters an inch long, regimental number, bugle and eagle, according to the Regulations, were ascommon to Eastern boys as they were rare among the Westerners. 

The latter usually wore blouses, instead of dress coats, and as a ruletheir clothing had not been renewed since the opening, of the campaign--and it showed this. Those who wore good boots or shoes generally had tosubmit to forcible exchanges by their captors, and the same was true ofhead gear. The Rebels were badly off in regard to hats. They did nothave skill and ingenuity enough to make these out of felt or straw, andthe make-shifts they contrived of quilted calico and long-leaved pine, were ugly enough to frighten horned cattle. 

I never blamed them much for wanting to get rid of these, even if theydid have to commit a sort of highway robbery upon defenseless prisonersto do so. To be a traitor in arms was bad certainly, but one neverappreciated the entire magnitude of the crime until he saw a Rebelwearing a calico or a pine-leaf hat. Then one felt as if it would be agreat mistake to ever show such a man mercy. 

The Army of Northern Virginia seemed to have supplied themselves withhead-gear of Yankee manufacture of previous years, and they then quittaking the hats of their prisoners. Johnston's Army did not have suchgood luck, and had to keep plundering to the end of the war. 

Another thing about the Army of the Potomac was the variety of theuniforms. There were members of Zouave regiments, wearing baggy breechesof various hues, gaiters, crimson fezes, and profusely braided jackets. I have before mentioned the queer garb of the "Lost Ducks. " (Les EnfantsPerdu, Forty-eighth New York. )

One of the most striking uniforms was that of the "Fourteenth Brooklyn. "They wore scarlet pantaloons, a blue jacket handsomely braided, and a redfez, with a white cloth wrapped around the head, turban-fashion. As a large number of them were captured, they formed quite a picturesquefeature of every crowd. They were generally good fellows and gallantsoldiers. 

Another uniform that attracted much, though not so favorable, attentionwas that of the Third New Jersey Cavalry, or First New Jersey Hussars, as they preferred to call themselves. The designer of the uniform musthave had an interest in a curcuma plantation, or else he was a fanaticalOrangeman. Each uniform would furnish occasion enough for a dozen NewYork riots on the 12th of July. Never was such an eruption of theyellows seen outside of the jaundiced livery of some Eastern potentate. Down each leg of the pantaloons ran a stripe of yellow braid one andone-half inches wide. The jacket had enormous gilt buttons, and wasembellished with yellow braid until it was difficult to tell whether itwas blue cloth trimmed with yellow, or yellow adorned with blue. Fromthe shoulders swung a little, false hussar jacket, lined with the sameflaring yellow. The vizor-less cap was similarly warmed up with the hueof the perfected sunflower. Their saffron magnificence was like thegorgeous gold of the lilies of the field, and Solomon in all his glorycould not have beau arrayed like one of them. I hope he was not. I wantto retain my respect for him. We dubbed these daffodil cavaliers"Butterflies, " and the name stuck to them like a poor relation. 

Still another distinction that was always noticeable between the twoarmies was in the bodily bearing of the men. The Army of the Potomac wasdrilled more rigidly than the Western men, and had comparatively few longmarches. Its members had something of the stiffness and precision ofEnglish and German soldiery, while the Western boys had the long, "reachy" stride, and easy swing that made forty miles a day a rathercommonplace march for an infantry regiment. 

This was why we knew the new prisoners to be Sherman's boys as soon asthey came inside, and we started for them to hear the news. Invitingthem over to our lean-to, we told them our anxiety for the story of thedecisive blow that gave us the Central Gate of the Confederacy, and askedthem to give it to us. 

CHAPTER LVI. 

WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF ATLANTA--A DISSERTATION UPON AN IMPORTANTPSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM--THE BATTLE OF JONESBORO--WHY IT WAS FOUGHT--HOW SHERMAN DECEIVED HOOD--A DESPERATE BAYONET CHARGE, AND THE ONLYSUCCESSFUL ONE IN THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN--A GALLANT COLONEL AND HOW HEDIED--THE HEROISM OF SOME ENLISTED MEN--GOING CALMLY INTO CERTAIN DEATH. 

An intelligent, quick-eyed, sunburned boy, without an ounce of surplusflesh on face or limbs, which had been reduced to gray-hound condition bythe labors and anxieties of the months of battling between Chattanoogaand Atlanta, seemed to be the accepted talker of the crowd, since all therest looked at him, as if expecting him to answer for them. He did so:

"You want to know about how we got Atlanta at last, do you? Well, if youdon't know, I should think you would want to. If I didn't, I'd wantsomebody to tell me all about it just as soon as he could get to me, forit was one of the neatest little bits of work that 'old Billy' and hisboys ever did, and it got away with Hood so bad that he hardly knew whathurt him. 

"Well, first, I'll tell you that we belong to the old Fourteenth OhioVolunteers, which, if you know anything about the Army of the Cumberland, you'll remember has just about as good a record as any that trains aroundold Pap Thomas--and he don't 'low no slouches of any kind near him, either--you can bet $500 to a cent on that, and offer to give back thecent if you win. Ours is Jim Steedman's old regiment--you've all heardof old Chickamauga Jim, who slashed his division of 7, 000 fresh men intothe Rebel flank on the second day at Chickamauga, in a way that madeLongstreet wish he'd staid on the Rappahannock, and never tried to get upany little sociable with the Westerners. If I do say it myself, Ibelieve we've got as good a crowd of square, stand-up, trust'em-every-minute-in-your-life boys, as ever thawed hard-tack andsowbelly. We got all the grunters and weak sisters fanned out the firstyear, and since then we've been on a business basis, all the time. We're in a mighty good brigade, too. Most of the regiments have beenwith us since we formed the first brigade Pap Thomas ever commanded, andwaded with him through the mud of Kentucky, from Wild Cat to MillSprings, where he gave Zollicoffer just a little the awfulest thrashingthat a Rebel General ever got. That, you know, was in January, 1862, and was the first victory gained by the Western Army, and our peoplefelt so rejoiced over it that--"

"Yes, yes; we've read all about that, " we broke in, "and we'd like tohear it again, some other time; but tell us now about Atlanta. "

"All right. Let's see: where was I? O, yes, talking about our brigade. It is the Third Brigade, of the Third Division, of the Fourteenth Corps, and is made up of the Fourteenth Ohio, Thirty-eighth Ohio, TenthKentucky, and Seventy-fourth Indiana. Our old Colonel--George P. Este--commands it. We never liked him very well in camp, but I tell youhe's a whole team in a fight, and he'd do so well there that all wouldtake to him again, and he'd be real popular for a while. "

"Now, isn't that strange, " broke in Andrews, who was given to fits ofspeculation of psychological phenomena: "None of us yearn to die, but thesurest way to gain the affection of the boys is to show zeal in leadingthem into scrapes where the chances of getting shot are the best. Courage in action, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. I haveknown it to make the most unpopular man in the battalion, the mostpopular inside of half an hour. Now, M. (addressing himself to me, ) youremember Lieutenant H. , of our battalion. You know he was a very fancyyoung fellow; wore as snipish' clothes as the tailor could make, had goldlace on his jacket wherever the regulations would allow it, decorated hisshoulders with the stunningest pair of shoulder knots I ever saw, and soon. Well, he did not stay with us long after we went to the front. Hewent back on a detail for a court martial, and staid a good while. Whenhe rejoined us, he was not in good odor, at all, and the boys weren't atall careful in saying unpleasant things when he could hear them, A littlewhile after he came back we made that reconnaissance up on the VirginiaRoad. We stirred up the Johnnies with our skirmish line, and while thefiring was going on in front we sat on our horses in line, waiting forthe order to move forward and engage. You know how solemn such momentsare. I looked down the line and saw Lieutenant H. At the right ofCompany --, in command of it. I had not seen him since he came back, andI sung out:

"'Hello, Lieutenant, how do you feel?'

"The reply came back, promptly, and with boyish cheerfulness:

"'Bully, by ----; I'm going to lead seventy men of Company into actiontoday!'

"How his boys did cheer him. When the bugle sounded--'forward, trot, 'his company sailed in as if they meant it, and swept the Johnnies off inshort meter. You never heard anybody say anything against Lieutenantafter that. "

"You know how it was with Captain G. , of our regiment, " said one of theFourteenth to another. "He was promoted from Orderly Sergeant to aSecond Lieutenant, and assigned to Company D. All the members of CompanyD went to headquarters in a body, and protested against his being put intheir company, and he was not. Well, he behaved so well at Chickamaugathat the boys saw that they had done him a great injustice, and all thosethat still lived went again to headquarters, and asked to take all backthat they had said, and to have him put into the company. "

"Well, that was doing the manly thing, sure; but go on about Atlanta. "

"I was telling about our brigade, " resumed the narrator. "Of course, wethink our regiment's the best by long odds in the army--every fellowthinks that of his regiment--but next to it come the other regiments ofour brigade. There's not a cent of discount on any of them. 

"Sherman had stretched out his right away to the south and west ofAtlanta. About the middle of August our corps, commanded by Jefferson C. Davis, was lying in works at Utoy Creek, a couple of miles from Atlanta. We could see the tall steeples and the high buildings of the City quiteplainly. Things had gone on dull and quiet like for about ten days. This was longer by a good deal than we had been at rest since we leftResaca in the Spring. We knew that something was brewing, and that itmust come to a head soon. 

"I belong to Company C. Our little mess--now reduced to three by theloss of two of our best soldiers and cooks, Disbrow and Sulier, killedbehind head-logs in front of Atlanta, by sharpshooters--had one fellowthat we called 'Observer, ' because he had such a faculty of picking upnews in his prowling around headquarters. He brought us in so much ofthis, and it was generally so reliable that we frequently made up hisabsence from duty by taking his place. He was never away from a fight, though. On the night of the 25th of August, 'Observer' came in with thenews that something was in the wind. Sherman was getting awful restless, and we had found out that this always meant lots of trouble to ourfriends on the other side. 

"Sure enough, orders came to get ready to move, and the next night we allmoved to the right and rear, out of sight of the Johnnies. Our wellbuilt works were left in charge of Garrard's Cavalry, who concealed theirhorses in the rear, and came up and took our places. The whole armyexcept the Twentieth Corps moved quietly off, and did it so nicely thatwe were gone some time before the enemy suspected it. Then the TwentiethCorps pulled out towards the North, and fell back to the Chattahoochie, making quite a shove of retreat. The Rebels snapped up the baitgreedily. They thought the siege was being raised, and they poured overtheir works to hurry the Twentieth boys off. The Twentieth fellows letthem know that there was lots of sting in them yet, and the Johnnies werenot long in discovering that it would have been money in their pockets ifthey had let that 'moon-and-star' (that's the Twentieth's badge, youknow) crowd alone. 

"But the Rebs thought the rest of us were gone for good and that Atlantawas saved. Naturally they felt mighty happy over it; and resolved tohave a big celebration--a ball, a meeting of jubilee, etc. Extra trainswere run in, with girls and women from the surrounding country, and theyjust had a high old time. 

"In the meantime we were going through so many different kinds of tacticsthat it looked as if Sherman was really crazy this time, sure. Finallywe made a grand left wheel, and then went forward a long way in line ofbattle. It puzzled us a good deal, but we knew that Sherman couldn't getus into any scrape that Pap Thomas couldn't get us out of, and so it wasall right. 

"Along on the evening of the 31st our right wing seemed to have runagainst a hornet's nest, and we could hear the musketry and cannon speakout real spiteful, but nothing came down our way. We had struck therailroad leading south from Atlanta to Macon, and began tearing it up. The jollity at Atlanta was stopped right in the middle by the appallingnews that the Yankees hadn't retreated worth a cent, but had broken outin a new and much worse spot than ever. Then there was no end of troubleall around, and Hood started part of his army back after us. 

"Part of Hardee's and Pat Cleburne's command went into position in frontof us. We left them alone till Stanley could come up on our left, andswing around, so as to cut off their retreat, when we would bag every oneof them. But Stanley was as slow as he always was, and did not come upuntil it was too late, and the game was gone. 

"The sun was just going down on the evening of the 1st of September, whenwe began to see we were in for it, sure. The Fourteenth Corps wheeledinto position near the railroad, and the sound of musketry and artillerybecame very loud and clear on our front and left. We turned a little andmarched straight toward the racket, becoming more excited every minute. We saw the Carlin's brigade of regulars, who were some distance ahead ofus, pile knapsacks, form in line, fix bayonets, and dash off witharousing cheer. 

"The Rebel fire beat upon them like a Summer rain-storm, the ground shookwith the noise, and just as we reached the edge of the cotton field, wesaw the remnant of the brigade come flying back out of the awful, blasting shower of bullets. The whole slope was covered with dead andwounded. "

"Yes, " interrupts one of the Fourteenth; "and they made that chargeright gamely, too, I can tell you. They were good soldiers, and wellled. When we went over the works, I remember seeing the body of a littleMajor of one of the regiments lying right on the top. If he hadn't beenkilled he'd been inside in a half-a-dozen steps more. There's no mistakeabout it; those regulars will fight. "

"When we saw this, " resumed the narrator, "it set our fellows fairlywild; they became just crying mad; I never saw them so before. The ordercame to strip for the charge, and our knapsacks were piled in half aminute. A Lieutenant of our company, who was then on the staff of Gen. Baird, our division commander, rode slowly down the line and gave us ourinstructions to load our guns, fix bayonets, and hold fire until we wereon top of the Rebel works. Then Colonel Este sang out clear and steadyas a bugle signal:

"'Brigade, forward! Guide center! MARCH!!'

"And we started. Heavens, how they did let into us, as we came up intorange. They had ten pieces of artillery, and more men behind thebreastworks than we had in line, and the fire they poured on us wassimply withering. We walked across the hundreds of dead and dying of theregular brigade, and at every step our own men fell down among them. General Baud's horse was shot down, and the General thrown far over hishead, but he jumped up and ran alongside of us. Major Wilson, ourregimental commander, fell mortally wounded; Lieutenant Kirk was killed, and also Captain Stopfard, Adjutant General of the brigade. LieutenantsCobb and Mitchell dropped with wounds that proved fatal in a few days. Captain Ugan lost an arm, one-third of the enlisted men fell, but we wentstraight ahead, the grape and the musketry becoming worse every step, until we gained the edge of the hill, where we were checked a minute bythe brush, which the Rebels had fixed up in the shape of abattis. Justthen a terrible fire from a new direction, our left, swept down the wholelength of our line. The Colonel of the Seventeenth New York--as gallanta man as ever lived saw the new trouble, took his regiment in on the run, and relieved us of this, but he was himself mortally wounded. If ourboys were half-crazy before, they were frantic now, and as we got out ofthe entanglement of the brush, we raised a fearful yell and ran at theworks. We climbed the sides, fired right down into the defenders, andthen began with the bayonet and sword. For a few minutes it was simplyawful. On both sides men acted like infuriated devils. They dashed eachother's brains out with clubbed muskets; bayonets were driven into men'sbodies up to the muzzle of the gun; officers ran their swords throughtheir opponents, and revolvers, after being emptied into the faces of theRebels, were thrown with desperate force into the ranks. In our regimentwas a stout German butcher named Frank Fleck. He became so excited thathe threw down his sword, and rushed among the Rebels with his bare fists, knocking down a swath of them. He yelled to the first Rebel he met:

"Py Gott, I've no patience mit you, ' and knocked him sprawling. He caught hold of the commander of the Rebel Brigade, and snatched himback over the works by main strength. Wonderful to say, he escapedunhurt, but the boys will probably not soon let him hear the last of, "Py Gott, I've no patience mit you. '

"The Tenth Kentucky, by the queerest luck in the world, was matchedagainst the Rebel Ninth Kentucky. The commanders of the two regimentswere brothers-in-law, and the men relatives, friends, acquaintances andschoolmates. They hated each other accordingly, and the fight betweenthem was more bitter, if possible, than anywhere else on the line. The Thirty-Eighth Ohio and Seventy-fourth Indiana put in some work thatwas just magnificent. We hadn't time to look at it then, but the deadand wounded piled up after the fight told the story. 

"We gradually forced our way over the works, but the Rebels were game tothe last, and we had to make them surrender almost one at a time. The artillerymen tried to fire on us when we were so close we could layour hands on the guns. 

"Finally nearly all in the works surrendered, and were disarmed andmarched back. Just then an aid came dashing up with the information thatwe must turn the works, and get ready to receive Hardee, who wasadvancing to retake the position. We snatched up some shovels lyingnear, and began work. We had no time to remove the dead and dying Rebelson the works, and the dirt we threw covered them up. It proved a falsealarm. Hardee had as much as he could do to save his own hide, and theaffair ended about dark. 

"When we came to count up what we had gained, we found that we hadactually taken more prisoners from behind breastworks than there were inour brigade when we started the charge. We had made the only reallysuccessful bayonet charge of the campaign. Every other time since weleft Chattanooga the party standing on the defensive had been successful. Here we had taken strong double lines, with ten guns, seven battle flags, and over two thousand prisoners. We had lost terribly--not less thanone-third of the brigade, and many of our best men. Our regiment wentinto the battle with fifteen officers; nine of these were killed orwounded, and seven of the nine lost either their limbs or lives. The Thirty-Eighth Ohio, and the other regiments of the brigade lostequally heavy. We thought Chickamauga awful, but Jonesboro discountedit. "

"Do you know, " said another of the Fourteenth, "I heard our Surgeontelling about how that Colonel Grower, of the Seventeenth New York, who came in so splendidly on our left, died? They say he was a WallStreet broker, before the war. He was hit shortly after he led hisregiment in, and after the fight, was carried back to the hospital. While our Surgeon was going the rounds Colonel Grower called him, andsaid quietly, 'When you get through with the men, come and see me, please. '

"The Doctor would have attended to him then, but Grower wouldn't let him. After he got through he went back to Grower, examined his wound, and toldhim that he could only live a few hours. Grower received the newstranquilly, had the Doctor write a letter to his wife, and gave him histhings to send her, and then grasping the Doctor's hand, he said:

"Doctor, I've just one more favor to ask; will you grant it?'

"The Doctor said, 'Certainly; what is it?'

"You say I can't live but a few hours?'

"Yes; that is true. '

"And that I will likely be in great pain!'

"I am sorry to say so. '

"Well, then, do give me morphia enough to put me to sleep, so that I willwake up only in another world. '

"The Doctor did so; Colonel Grower thanked him; wrung his hand, bade himgood-by, and went to sleep to wake no more. "

"Do you believe in presentiments and superstitions?" said another of theFourteenth. There was Fisher Pray, Orderly Sergeant of Company I. Hecame from Waterville, O. , where his folks are now living. The day beforewe started out he had a presentiment that we were going into a fight, andthat he would be killed. He couldn't shake it off. He told theLieutenant, and some of the boys about it, and they tried to ridicule himout of it, but it was no good. When the sharp firing broke out in frontsome of the boys said, 'Fisher, I do believe you are right, ' and henodded his head mournfully. When we were piling knapsacks for thecharge, the Lieutenant, who was a great friend of Fisher's, said:

"Fisher, you stay here and guard the knapsacks. '

"Fisher's face blazed in an instant. 

"No, sir, ' said he; I never shirked a fight yet, and I won't begin now. '

"So he went into the fight, and was killed, as he knew he would be. Now, that's what I call nerve. "

"The same thing was true of Sergeant Arthur Tarbox, of Company A, " saidthe narrator; "he had a presentiment, too; he knew he was going to bekilled, if he went in, and he was offered an honorable chance to stayout, but he would not take it, and went in and was killed. "

"Well, we staid there the next day, buried our dead, took care of ourwounded, and gathered up the plunder we had taken from the Johnnies. The rest of the army went off, 'hot blocks, ' after Hardee and the rest ofHood's army, which it was hoped would be caught outside of entrenchments. But Hood had too much the start, and got into the works at Lovejoy, aheadof our fellows. The night before we heard several very loud explosionsup to the north. We guessed what that meant, and so did the TwentiethCorps, who were lying back at the Chattahoochee, and the next morning theGeneral commanding--Slocum--sent out a reconnaissance. It was met by theMayor of Atlanta, who said that the Rebels had blown up their stores andretreated. The Twentieth Corps then came in and took 'possession of theCity, and the next day--the 3d--Sherman came in, and issued an orderdeclaring the campaign at an end, and that we would rest awhile andrefit. 

"We laid around Atlanta a good while, and things quieted down so that itseemed almost like peace, after the four months of continual fighting wehad gone through. We had been under a strain so long that now we boyswent in the other direction, and became too careless, and that's how wegot picked up. We went out about five miles one night after a lot ofnice smoked hams that a nigger told us were stored in an old cottonpress, and which we knew would be enough sight better eating for CompanyC, than the commissary pork we had lived on so long. We found the cottonpress, and the hams, just as the nigger told us, and we hitched up a teamto take them into camp. As we hadn't seen any Johnny signs anywhere, we set our guns down to help load the meat, and just as we all camestringing out to the wagon with as much meat as we could carry, a companyof Ferguson's Cavalry popped out of the woods about one hundred yards infront of us and were on top of us before we could say I scat. You seethey'd heard of the meat, too. "

CHAPTER LVII. 

A FAIR SACRIFICE--THE STORY OF ONE BOY WHO WILLINGLY GAVE HIS YOUNG LIFEFOR HIS COUNTRY. 

Charley Barbour was one of the truest-hearted and best-liked of myschool-boy chums and friends. For several terms we sat together on thesame uncompromisingly uncomfortable bench, worried over the sameboy-maddening problems in "Ray's Arithmetic-Part III. , " learned the samejargon of meaningless rules from "Greene's Grammar, " pondered over"Mitchell's Geography and Atlas, " and tried in vain to understand whyProvidence made the surface of one State obtrusively pink and anotherultramarine blue; trod slowly and painfully over the rugged road"Bullion" points out for beginners in Latin, and began to believe weshould hate ourselves and everybody else, if we were gotten up after themanner shown by "Cutter's Physiology. " We were caught together in thesame long series of school-boy scrapes--and were usually ferruledtogether by the same strong-armed teacher. We shared nearly everything--our fun and work; enjoyment and annoyance--all were generally meted outto us together. We read from the same books the story of the wonderfulworld we were going to see in that bright future "when we were men;" wespent our Saturdays and vacations in the miniature explorations of therocky hills and caves, and dark cedar woods around our homes, to gatherocular helps to a better comprehension of that magical land which we wereconvinced began just beyond our horizon, and had in it, visible to theeye of him who traveled through its enchanted breadth, all that"Gulliver's Fables, " the "Arabian Nights, " and a hundred books of traveland adventure told of. 

We imagined that the only dull and commonplace spot on earth was thatwhere we lived. Everywhere else life was a grand spectacular drama, fullof thrilling effects. 

Brave and handsome young men were rescuing distressed damsels, beautifulas they were wealthy; bloody pirates and swarthy murderers were beingfoiled by quaint spoken backwoodsmen, who carried unerring rifles;gallant but blundering Irishmen, speaking the most delightful brogue, and making the funniest mistakes, were daily thwarting cool anddetermined villains; bold tars were encountering fearful sea perils;lionhearted adventurers were cowing and quelling whole tribes ofbarbarians; magicians were casting spells, misers hoarding gold, scientists making astonishing discoveries, poor and unknown boysachieving wealth and fame at a single bound, hidden mysteries coming tolight, and so the world was going on, making reams of history with eachdiurnal revolution, and furnishing boundless material for the mostdelightful books. 

At the age of thirteen a perusal of the lives of Benjamin Franklin andHorace Greeley precipitated my determination to no longer hesitate inlaunching my small bark upon the great ocean. I ran away from home in atruly romantic way, and placed my foot on what I expected to be the firstround of the ladder of fame, by becoming "devil boy" in a printing officein a distant large City. Charley's attachment to his mother and his homewas too strong to permit him to take this step, and we parted in sorrow, mitigated on my side by roseate dreams of the future. 

Six years passed. One hot August morning I met an old acquaintance atthe Creek, in Andersonville. He told me to come there the next morning, after roll-call, and he would take me to see some person who was veryanxious to meet me. I was prompt at the rendezvous, and was soon joinedby the other party. He threaded his way slowly for over half an hourthrough the closely-jumbled mass of tents and burrows, and at lengthstopped in front of a blanket-tent in the northwestern corner. Theoccupant rose and took my hand. For an instant I was puzzled; then theclear, blue eyes, and well-remembered smile recalled to me my old-timecomrade, Charley Barbour. His story was soon told. He was a Sergeant ina Western Virginia cavalry regiment--the Fourth, I think. At the timeHunter was making his retreat from the Valley of Virginia, it was decidedto mislead the enemy by sending out a courier with false dispatches to becaptured. There was a call for a volunteer for this service. Charleywas the first to offer, with that spirit of generous self-sacrifice thatwas one of his pleasantest traits when a boy. He knew what he had toexpect. Capture meant imprisonment at Andersonville; our men had now apretty clear understanding of what this was. Charley took the dispatchesand rode into the enemy's lines. He was taken, and the false informationproduced the desired effect. On his way to Andersonville he was strippedof all his clothing but his shirt and pantaloons, and turned into theStockade in this condition. When I saw him he had been in a week ormore. He told his story quietly--almost diffidently--not seeming awarethat he had done more than his simple duty. I left him with the promiseand expectation of returning the next day, but when I attempted to findhim again, I was lost in the maze of tents and burrows. I had forgottento ask the number of his detachment, and after spending several days inhunting for him, I was forced to give the search up. He knew as littleof my whereabouts, and though we were all the time within seventeenhundred feet of each other, neither we nor our common acquaintance couldever manage to meet again. This will give the reader an idea of thethrong compressed within the narrow limits of the Stockade. Afterleaving Andersonville, however, I met this man once more, and learnedfrom him that Charley had sickened and died within a month after hisentrance to prison. 

So ended his day-dream of a career in the busy world. 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

WE LEAVE SAVANNAH--MORE HOPES OF EXCHANGE--SCENES AT DEPARTURE--"FLANKERS"--ON THE BACK TRACK TOWARD ANDERSONVILLE--ALARM THEREAT--AT THE PARTING OF TWO WAYS--WE FINALLY BRING UP AT CAMP LAWTON. 

On the evening of the 11th of October there came an order for onethousand prisoners to fall in and march out, for transfer to some otherpoint. 

Of course, Andrews and I "flanked" into this crowd. That was our usualway of doing. Holding that the chances were strongly in favor of everymovement of prisoners being to our lines, we never failed to be numberedin the first squad of prisoners that were sent out. The seductive mirageof "exchange" was always luring us on. It must come some time, certainly, and it would be most likely to come to those who were mostearnestly searching for it. At all events, we should leave no meansuntried to avail ourselves of whatever seeming chances there might be. There could be no other motive for this move, we argued, than exchange. The Confederacy was not likely to be at the trouble and expense ofhauling us about the country without some good reason--something betterthan a wish to make us acquainted with Southern scenery and topography. It would hardly take us away from Savannah so soon after bringing usthere for any other purpose than delivery to our people. 

The Rebels encouraged this belief with direct assertions of its truth. They framed a plausible lie about there having arisen some difficultyconcerning the admission of our vessels past the harbor defenses ofSavannah, which made it necessary to take us elsewhere--probably toCharleston--for delivery to our men. 

Wishes are always the most powerful allies of belief. There is littledifficulty in convincing a man of that of which he wants to be convinced. We forgot the lie told us when we were taken from Andersonville, andbelieved the one which was told us now. 

Andrews and I hastily snatched our worldly possessions--our overcoat, blanket, can, spoon, chessboard and men, yelled to some of our neighborsthat they could have our hitherto much-treasured house, and running downto the gate, forced ourselves well up to the front of the crowd that wasbeing assembled to go out. 

The usual scenes accompanying the departure of first squads were beingacted tumultuously. Every one in the camp wanted to be one of thesupposed-to-be-favored few, and if not selected at first, tried to "flankin"--that is, slip into the place of some one else who had had betterluck. This one naturally resisted displacement, 'vi et armis, ' and thefights would become so general as to cause a resemblance to the famedFair of Donnybrook. The cry would go up:

"Look out for flankers!"

The lines of the selected would dress up compactly, and outsiders tryingto force themselves in would get mercilessly pounded. 

We finally got out of the pen, and into the cars, which soon rolled awayto the westward. We were packed in too densely to be able to lie down. We could hardly sit down. Andrews and I took up our position in onecorner, piled our little treasures under us, and trying to lean againsteach other in such a way as to afford mutual support and rest, dozedfitfully through a long, weary night. 

When morning came we found ourselves running northwest through a poor, pine-barren country that strongly resembled that we had traversed incoming to Savannah. The more we looked at it the more familiar itbecame, and soon there was no doubt we were going back to Andersonville. 

By noon we had reached Millen--eighty miles from Savannah, andfifty-three from Augusta. It was the junction of the road leading toMacon and that running to Augusta. We halted a little while at the "Y, "and to us the minutes were full of anxiety. If we turned off to theleft we were going back to Andersonville. If we took the right handroad we were on the way to Charleston or Richmond, with the chances infavor of exchange. 

At length we started, and, to our joy, our engine took the right handtrack. We stopped again, after a run of five miles, in the midst of oneof the open, scattering forests of long leaved pine that I have beforedescribed. We were ordered out of the cars, and marching a few rods, came in sight of another of those hateful Stockades, which seemed to beas natural products of the Sterile sand of that dreary land as itsdesolate woods and its breed of boy murderers and gray-headed assassins. 

Again our hearts sank, and death seemed more welcome than incarcerationin those gloomy wooden walls. We marched despondently up to the gates ofthe Prison, and halted while a party of Rebel clerks made a list of ournames, rank, companies, and regiments. As they were Rebels it was slowwork. Reading and writing never came by nature, as Dogberry would say, to any man fighting for Secession. As a rule, he took to them asreluctantly as if, he thought them cunning inventions of the NorthernAbolitionist to perplex and demoralize him. What a half-dozen boys takenout of our own ranks would have done with ease in an hour or so, theseRebels worried over all of the afternoon, and then their register of uswas so imperfect, badly written and misspelled, that the Yankee clerksafterwards detailed for the purpose, never could succeed in reducing itto intelligibility. 

We learned that the place at which we had arrived was Camp Lawton, but wealmost always spoke of it as "Millen, " the same as Camp Sumter isuniversally known as Andersonville. 

Shortly after dark we were turned inside the Stockade. Being the firstthat had entered, there was quite a quantity of wood--the offal from thetimber used in constructing the Stockade--lying on the ground. The nightwas chilly one we soon had a number of fires blazing. Green pitch pine, when burned, gives off a peculiar, pungent odor, which is never forgottenby one who has once smelled it. I first became acquainted with it onentering Andersonville, and to this day it is the most powerfulremembrance I can have of the opening of that dreadful Iliad of woes. On my journey to Washington of late years the locomotives are invariablyfed with pitch pine as we near the Capital, and as the well-rememberedsmell reaches me, I grow sick at heart with the flood of saddeningrecollections indissolubly associated with it. 

As our fires blazed up the clinging, penetrating fumes diffusedthemselves everywhere. The night was as cool as the one when we arrivedat Andersonville, the earth, meagerly sodded with sparse, hard, wirygrass, was the same; the same piney breezes blew in from the surroundingtrees, the same dismal owls hooted at us; the same mournfulwhip-poor-will lamented, God knows what, in the gathering twilight. What we both felt in the gloomy recesses of downcast hearts Andrewsexpressed as he turned to me with:

"My God, Mc, this looks like Andersonville all over again. "

A cupful of corn meal was issued to each of us. I hunted up some water. Andrews made a stiff dough, and spread it about half an inch thick on theback of our chessboard. He propped this up before the fire, and when thesurface was neatly browned over, slipped it off the board and turned itover to brown the other side similarly. This done, we divided itcarefully between us, swallowed it in silence, spread our old overcoat onthe ground, tucked chess-board, can, and spoon under far enough to be outof the reach of thieves, adjusted the thin blanket so as to get the mostpossible warmth out of it, crawled in close together, and went to sleep. This, thank Heaven, we could do; we could still sleep, and Nature hadsome opportunity to repair the waste of the day. We slept, and forgotwhere we were. 

CHAPTER LIX. 

OUR NEW QUARTERS AT CAMP LAWTON--BUILDING A HUT--AN EXCEPTIONALCOMMANDANT--HE IS a GOOD MAN, BUT WILL TAKE BRIBES--RATIONS. 

In the morning we took a survey of our new quarters, and found that wewere in a Stockade resembling very much in construction and dimensionsthat at Andersonville. The principal difference was that the uprightlogs were in their rough state, whereas they were hewed at Andersonville, and the brook running through the camp was not bordered by a swamp, buthad clean, firm banks. 

Our next move was to make the best of the situation. We were dividedinto hundreds, each commanded by a Sergeant. Ten hundreds constituted adivision, the head of which was also a Sergeant. I was elected by mycomrades to the Sergeantcy of the Second Hundred of the First Division. As soon as we were assigned to our ground, we began constructing shelter. For the first and only time in my prison experience, we found a fullsupply of material for this purpose, and the use we made of it showed howinfinitely better we would have fared if in each prison the Rebels haddone even so slight a thing as to bring in a few logs from thesurrounding woods and distribute them to us. A hundred or so of thesewould probably have saved thousands of lives at Andersonville andFlorence. 

A large tree lay on the ground assigned to our hundred. Andrews and Itook possession of one side of the ten feet nearest the butt. Other boysoccupied the rest in a similar manner. One of our boys had succeeded insmuggling an ax in with him, and we kept it in constant use day andnight, each group borrowing it for an hour or so at a time. It was asdull as a hoe, and we were very weak, so that it was slow work "niggeringoff"--(as the boys termed it) a cut of the log. It seemed as if beaverscould have gnawed it off easier and more quickly. We only cut an inch orso at a time, and then passed the ax to the next users. Making littlewedges with a dull knife, we drove them into the log with clubs, andsplit off long, thin strips, like the weatherboards of a house, and bythe time we had split off our share of the log in this slow and laboriousway, we had a fine lot of these strips. We were lucky enough to findfour forked sticks, of which we made the corners of our dwelling, androofed it carefully with our strips, held in place by sods torn up fromthe edge of the creek bank. The sides and ends were enclosed; wegathered enough pine tops to cover the ground to a depth of severalinches; we banked up the outside, and ditched around it, and then had themost comfortable abode we had during our prison career. It was truly ahouse builded with our own hands, for we had no tools whatever save theoccasional use of the aforementioned dull axe and equally dull knife. 

The rude little hut represented as much actual hard, manual labor aswould be required to build a comfortable little cottage in the North, but we gladly performed it, as we would have done any other work tobetter our condition. 

For a while wood was quite plentiful, and we had the luxury daily of warmfires, which the increasing coolness of the weather made importantaccessories to our comfort. 

Other prisoners kept coming in. Those we left behind at Savannahfollowed us, and the prison there was broken up. Quite a number alsocame in from--Andersonville, so that in a little while we had between sixand seven thousand in the Stockade. The last comers found all thematerial for tents and all the fuel used up, and consequently did notfare so well as the earlier arrivals. 

The commandant of the prison--one Captain Bowes--was the best of hisclass it was my fortune to meet. Compared with the senseless brutalityof Wirz, the reckless deviltry of Davis, or the stupid malignance ofBarrett, at Florence, his administration was mildness and wisdom itself. 

He enforced discipline better than any of those named, but has what theyall lacked--executive ability--and he secured results that they could notpossibly attain, and without anything, like the friction that attendedtheir efforts. I do not remember that any one was shot during our sixweeks' stay at Millen--a circumstance simply remarkable, since I do notrecall a single week passed anywhere else without at least one murder bythe guards. 

One instance will illustrate the difference of his administration fromthat of other prison commandants. He came upon the grounds ofour division one morning, accompanied by a pleasant-faced, intelligent-appearing lad of about fifteen or sixteen. He said to us:

"Gentlemen: (The only instance during our imprisonment when we receivedso polite a designation. ) This is my son, who will hereafter call yourroll. He will treat you as gentlemen, and I know you will do the same tohim. "

This understanding was observed to the letter on both sides. Young Bowesinvariably spoke civilly to us, and we obeyed his orders with a promptcheerfulness that left him nothing to complain of. 

The only charge I have to make against Bowes is made more in detail inanother chapter, and that is, that he took money from well prisoners forgiving them the first chance to go through on the Sick Exchange. How culpable this was I must leave each reader to decide for himself. I thought it very wrong at the time, but possibly my views might havebeen colored highly by my not having any money wherewith to procure myown inclusion in the happy lot of the exchanged. 

Of one thing I am certain: that his acceptance of money to bias hisofficial action was not singular on his part. I am convinced that everycommandant we had over us--except Wirz--was habitually in the receipt ofbribes from prisoners. I never heard that any one succeeded in bribingWirz, and this is the sole good thing I can say of that fellow. Againstthis it may be said, however, that he plundered the boys so effectuallyon entering the prison as to leave them little of the wherewithal tobribe anybody. 

Davis was probably the most unscrupulous bribe-taker of the lot. He actually received money for permitting prisoners to escape to ourlines, and got down to as low a figure as one hundred dollars for thissort of service. I never heard that any of the other commandants wentthis far. 

The rations issued to us were somewhat better than those ofAndersonville, as the meal was finer and better, though it was absurdedlyinsufficient in quantity, and we received no salt. On several occasionsfresh beef was dealt out to us, and each time the excitement createdamong those who had not tasted fresh meat for weeks and months waswonderful. On the first occasion the meat was simply the heads of thecattle killed for the use of the guards. Several wagon loads of thesewere brought in and distributed. We broke them up so that every man gota piece of the bone, which was boiled and reboiled, as long as a singlebubble of grease would rise to the surface of the water; every vestige ofmeat was gnawed and scraped from the surface and then the bone wascharred until it crumbled, when it was eaten. No one who has notexperienced it can imagine the inordinate hunger for animal food of thosewho had eaten little else than corn bread for so long. Our exhaustedbodies were perishing for lack of proper sustenance. Nature indicatedfresh beef as the best medium to repair the great damage already done, and our longing for it became beyond description. 

CHAPTER LX. 

THE RAIDERS REAPPEAR ON THE SCENE--THE ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THOSE WHOWERE CONCERNED IN THE EXECUTION--A COUPLE OF LIVELY FIGHTS, IN WHICH THERAIDERS ARE DEFEATED--HOLDING AN ELECTION. 

Our old antagonists--the Raiders--were present in strong force in Millen. Like ourselves, they had imagined the departure from Andersonville wasfor exchange, and their relations to the Rebels were such that they wereall given a chance to go with the first squads. A number had beenallowed to go with the sailors on the Special Naval Exchange fromSavannah, in the place of sailors and marines who had died. On the wayto Charleston a fight had taken place between them and the real sailors, during which one of their number--a curly-headed Irishman named Dailey, who was in such high favor with the Rebels that he was given the place ofdriving the ration wagon that came in the North Side at Andersonville--was killed, and thrown under the wheels of the moving train, which passedover him. 

After things began to settle into shape at Millen, they seemed to believethat they were in such ascendancy as to numbers and organization thatthey could put into execution their schemes of vengeance against those ofus who had been active participants in the execution of theirconfederates at Andersonville. 

After some little preliminaries they settled upon Corporal "Wat" Payne, of my company, as their first victim. The reader will remember Payne asone of the two Corporals who pulled the trigger to the scaffold at thetime of the execution. 

Payne was a very good man physically, and was yet in fair condition. The Raiders came up one day with their best man--Pete Donnelly--andprovoked a fight, intending, in the course of it, to kill Payne. We, who knew Payee, felt reasonably confident of his ability to handle evenso redoubtable a pugilist as Donnelly, and we gathered together a littlesquad of our friends to see fair play. 

The fight began after the usual amount of bad talk on both sides, and wewere pleased to see our man slowly get the better of the New Yorkplug-ugly. After several sharp rounds they closed, and still Payne wasahead, but in an evil moment he spied a pine knot at his feet, which hethought he could reach, and end the fight by cracking Donnelly's headwith it. Donnelly took instant advantage of the movement to get it, threw Payne heavily, and fell upon him. His crowd rushed in to finishour man by clubbing him over the head. We sailed in to prevent this, and after a rattling exchange of blows all around, succeeded in gettingPayne away. 

The issue of the fight seemed rather against us, however, and the Raiderswere much emboldened. Payne kept close to his crowd after that, and aswe had shown such an entire willingness to stand by him, the Raiders--with their accustomed prudence when real fighting was involved--did notattempt to molest him farther, though they talked very savagely. 

A few days after this Sergeant Goody and Corporal Ned Carrigan, both ofour battalion, came in. I must ask the reader to again recall the factthat Sergeant Goody was one of the six hangmen who put the meal-sacksover the heads, and the ropes around the necks of the condemned. Corporal Carrigan was the gigantic prize fighter, who was universallyacknowledged to be the best man physically among the whole thirty-fourthousand in Andersonville. The Raiders knew that Goody had come inbefore we of his own battalion did. They resolved to kill him then andthere, and in broad daylight. He had secured in some way a shelter tent, and was inside of it fixing it up. The Raider crowd, headed by PeteDonnelly, and Dick Allen, went up to his tent and one of them called tohim:

"Sergeant, come out; I want to see you. "

Goody, supposing it was one of us, came crawling out on his hands andknees. As he did so their heavy clubs crashed down upon his head. He was neither killed nor stunned, as they had reason to expect. He succeeded in rising to his feet, and breaking through the crowd ofassassins. He dashed down the side of the hill, hotly pursued by them. Coming to the Creek, he leaped it in his excitement, but his pursuerscould not, and were checked. One of our battalion boys, who saw andcomprehended the whole affair, ran over to us, shouting:

"Turn out! turn out, for God's sake! the Raiders are killing Goody!"

We snatched up our clubs and started after the Raiders, but before wecould reach them, Ned Carrigan, who also comprehended what the troublewas, had run to the side of Goody, armed with a terrible looking club. The sight of Ned, and the demonstration that he was thoroughly aroused, was enough for the Raider crew, and they abandoned the field hastily. We did not feel ourselves strong enough to follow them on to their owndung hill, and try conclusions with them, but we determined to report thematter to the Rebel Commandant, from whom we had reason to believe wecould expect assistance. We were right. He sent in a squad of guards, arrested Dick Allen, Pete Donnelly, and several other ringleaders, tookthem out and put them in the stocks in such a manner that they werecompelled to lie upon their stomachs. A shallow tin vessel containingwater was placed under their faces to furnish them drink. 

They staid there a day and night, and when released, joined the RebelArmy, entering the artillery company that manned the guns in the fortcovering the prison. I used to imagine with what zeal they would send usover; a round of shell or grape if they could get anything like anexcuse. 

This gave us good riddance--of our dangerous enemies, and we had littlefurther trouble with any of them. 

The depression in the temperature made me very sensible of thedeficiencies in my wardrobe. Unshod feet, a shirt like a fishing net, and pantaloons as well ventilated as a paling fence might do very wellfor the broiling sun at Andersonville and Savannah, but now, with thethermometer nightly dipping a little nearer the frost line, it becameunpleasantly evident that as garments their office was purelyperfunctory; one might say ornamental simply, if he wanted to be verysarcastic. They were worn solely to afford convenient quarters formultitudes of lice, and in deference to the prejudice which has existedsince the Fall of Man against our mingling with our fellow creatures inthe attire provided us by Nature. Had I read Darwin then I should haveexpected that my long exposure to the weather would start a fine suit offur, in the effort of Nature to adapt, me to my environment. But nomore indications of this appeared than if I had been a hairless dog ofMexico, suddenly transplanted to more northern latitudes. Providence didnot seem to be in the tempering-the-wind-to-the-shorn-lamb business, asfar as I was concerned. I still retained an almost unconquerableprejudice against stripping the dead to secure clothes, and so unlessexchange or death came speedily, I was in a bad fix. 

One morning about day break, Andrews, who had started to go to anotherpart of the camp, came slipping back in a state of gleeful excitement. At first I thought he either had found a tunnel or had heard some goodnews about exchange. It was neither. He opened his jacket and handed mean infantry man's blouse, which he had found in the main street, where ithad dropped out of some fellow's bundle. We did not make any extraexertion to find the owner. Andrews was in sore need of clothes himself, but my necessities were so much greater that the generous fellow thoughtof my wants first. We examined the garment with as much interest as evera belle bestowed on a new dress from Worth's. It was in fairpreservation, but the owner had cut the buttons off to trade to theguard, doubtless for a few sticks of wood, or a spoonful of salt. We supplied the place of these with little wooden pins, and I donned thegarment as a shirt and coat and vest, too, for that matter. The bestsuit I ever put on never gave me a hundredth part the satisfaction thatthis did. Shortly after, I managed to subdue my aversion so far as totake a good shoe which a one-legged dead man had no farther use for, anda little later a comrade gave me for the other foot a boot bottom fromwhich he had cut the top to make a bucket. 

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

The day of the Presidential election of 1864 approached. The Rebels werenaturally very much interested in the result, as they believed that theelection of McClellan meant compromise and cessation of hostilities, while the re-election of Lincoln meant prosecution of the War to thebitter end. The toadying Raiders, who were perpetually hanging aroundthe gate to get a chance to insinuate themselves into the favor of theRebel officers, persuaded them that we were all so bitterly hostile toour Government for not exchanging us that if we were allowed to vote wewould cast an overwhelming majority in favor of McClellan. 

The Rebels thought that this might perhaps be used to advantage aspolitical capital for their friends in the North. They gave orders thatwe might, if we chose, hold an election on the same day of thePresidential election. They sent in some ballot boxes, and we electedJudges of the Election. 

About noon of that day Captain Bowes, and a crowd of tightbooted, broad-hatted Rebel officers, strutted in with the peculiar "Ef-yer-don't-b'lieve--I'm-a-butcher-jest-smell-o'-mebutes" swagger characteristic ofthe class. They had come in to see us all voting for McClellan. Instead, they found the polls surrounded with ticket pedlers shouting:

"Walk right up here now, and get your Unconditional-Union-Abraham-Lincoln-tickets!"

"Here's your straight-haired prosecution-of-the-war ticket. "

"Vote the Lincoln ticket; vote to whip the Rebels, and make peace withthem when they've laid down their arms. "

"Don't vote a McClellan ticket and gratify Rebels, everywhere, " etc. 

The Rebel officers did not find the scene what their fancy painted it, and turning around they strutted out. 

When the votes came to be counted out there were over seven thousand forLincoln, and not half that many hundred for McClellan. The latter gotvery few votes outside the Raider crowd. The same day a similar electionwas held in Florence, with like result. Of course this did not indicatethat there was any such a preponderance of Republicans among us. It meant simply that the Democratic boys, little as they might have likedLincoln, would have voted for him a hundred times rather than do anythingto please the Rebels. 

I never heard that the Rebels sent the result North. 

CHAPTER LXI. 

THE REBELS FORMALLY PROPOSE TO US TO DESERT TO THEM--CONTUMELIOUSTREATMENT OF THE PROPOSITION--THEIR RAGE--AN EXCITING TIME--AN OUTBREAKTHREATENED--DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING DESERTION TO THE REBELS. 

One day in November, some little time after the occurrences narrated inthe last chapter, orders came in to make out rolls of all those who wereborn outside of the United States, and whose terms of service hadexpired. 

We held a little council among ourselves as to the meaning of this, andconcluded that some partial exchange had been agreed on, and the Rebelswere going to send back the class of boys whom they thought would be ofleast value to the Government. Acting on this conclusion the greatmajority of us enrolled ourselves as foreigners, and as having served outour terms. I made out the roll of my hundred, and managed to give everyman a foreign nativity. Those whose names would bear it were assigned toEngland, Ireland, Scotland France and Germany, and the balance weredistributed through Canada and the West Indies. After finishing the rolland sending it out, I did not wonder that the Rebels believed the battlesfor the Union were fought by foreign mercenaries. The other rolls weremade out in the same way, and I do not suppose that they showed fivehundred native Americans in the Stockade. 

The next day after sending out the rolls, there came an order that allthose whose names appeared thereon should fall in. We did so, promptly, and as nearly every man in camp was included, we fell in as for otherpurposes, by hundreds and thousands. We were then marched outside, andmassed around a stump on which stood a Rebel officer, evidently waitingto make us a speech. We awaited his remarks with the greatestimpatience, but He did not begin until the last division had marched outand came to a parade rest close to the stump. 

It was the same old story:

"Prisoners, you can no longer have any doubt that your Government hascruelly abandoned you; it makes no efforts to release you, and refusesall our offers of exchange. We are anxious to get our men back, and havemade every effort to do so, but it refuses to meet us on any reasonablegrounds. Your Secretary of War has said that the Government can getalong very well without you, and General Halleck has said that you werenothing but a set of blackberry pickers and coffee boilers anyhow. 

"You've already endured much more than it could expect of you; you servedit faithfully during the term you enlisted for, and now, when it isthrough with you, it throws you aside to starve and die. You also canhave no doubt that the Southern Confederacy is certain to succeed insecuring its independence. It will do this in a few months. It nowoffers you an opportunity to join its service, and if you serve itfaithfully to the end, you will receive the same rewards as the rest ofits soldiers. You will be taken out of here, be well clothed and fed, given a good bounty, and, at the conclusion of the War receive a landwarrant for a nice farm. If you"--

But we had heard enough. The Sergeant of our division--a man with astentorian voice sprang out and shouted:

"Attention, first Division!"

We Sergeants of hundreds repeated the command down the line. Shouted he:

"First Division, about--"

Said we:

"First Hundred, about--"

"Second Hundred, about--"

"Third Hundred, about--"

"Fourth Hundred, about--" etc. , etc. 

Said he:--

"FACE!!"

Ten Sergeants repeated "Face!" one after the other, and each man in thehundreds turned on his heel. Then our leader commanded--

"First Division, forward! MARCH!" and we strode back into the Stockade, followed immediately by all the other divisions, leaving the orator stillstanding on the stump. 

The Rebels were furious at this curt way of replying. We had scarcelyreached our quarters when they came in with several companies, withloaded guns and fixed bayonets. They drove us out of our tents and huts, into one corner, under the pretense of hunting axes and spades, but inreality to steal our blankets, and whatever else they could find thatthey wanted, and to break down and injure our huts, many of which, costing us days of patient labor, they destroyed in pure wantonness. 

We were burning with the bitterest indignation. A tall, slender mannamed Lloyd, a member of the Sixty-First Ohio--a rough, uneducatedfellow, but brim full of patriotism and manly common sense, jumped up ona stump and poured out his soul in rude but fiery eloquence: "Comrades, "he said, "do not let the blowing of these Rebel whelps discourage you;pay no attention to the lies they have told you to-day; you know wellthat our Government is too honorable and just to desert any one whoserves it; it has not deserted us; their hell-born Confederacy is notgoing to succeed. I tell you that as sure as there is a God who reignsand judges in Israel, before the Spring breezes stir the tops of theseblasted old pines their Confederacy and all the lousy graybacks whosupport it will be so deep in hell that nothing but a search warrant fromthe throne of God Almighty can ever find it again. And the glorious oldStars and Stripes--"

Here we began cheering tremendously. A Rebel Captain came running up, said to the guard, who was leaning on his gun, gazing curiously at Lloyd:

"What in ---- are you standing gaping there for? Why don't you shoot the---- ---- Yankee son---- -- - -----?" and snatching the gun away fromhim, cocked and leveled it at Lloyd, but the boys near jerked the speakerdown from the stump and saved his life. 

We became fearfully, wrought up. Some of the more excitable shouted outto charge on the line of guards, snatch they guns away from them, andforce our way through the gate The shouts were taken up by others, and, as if in obedience to the suggestion, we instinctively formed inline-of-battle facing the guards. A glance down the line showed me anarray of desperate, tensely drawn faces, such as one sees who looks amen when they are summoning up all their resolution for some deed ofgreat peril. The Rebel officers hastily retreated behind the line ofguards, whose faces blanched, but they leveled the muskets and preparedto receive us. 

Captain Bowes, who was overlooking the prison from an elevation outside, had, however, divined the trouble at the outset, an was preparing to meetit. The gunners, who had shotted the pieces and trained them upon uswhen we came out to listen t the speech, had again covered us with them, and were ready to sweep the prison with grape and canister at the instantof command. The long roll was summoning the infantry regiments back intoline, and some of the cooler-headed among us pointed these facts out andsucceeded in getting the line to dissolve again into groups of muttering, sullen-faced men. When this was done, the guards marched out, by acautious indirect maneuver, so as not to turn their backs to us. 

It was believed that we had some among us who would like to availthemselves of the offer of the Rebels, and that they would try to informthe Rebels of their desires by going to the gate during the night andspeaking to the Officer-of-the-Guard. A squad armed themselves withclubs and laid in wait for these. They succeeded in catching several--snatching some of then back even after they had told the guard theirwishes in a tone so loud that all near could hear distinctly. TheOfficer-of-the-Guard rushed in two or three times in a vain attempt tosave the would be deserter from the cruel hands that clutched him andbore him away to where he had a lesson in loyalty impressed upon thefleshiest part of his person by a long, flexible strip of pine wielded byvery willing hands. 

After this was kept up for several nights different ideas began I toprevail. It was felt that if a man wanted to join the Rebels, the bestway was to let him go and get rid of him. He was of no benefit to theGovernment, and would be of none to the Rebels. After this norestriction was put upon any one who desired to go outside and take theoath. But very few did so, however, and these were wholly confined tothe Raider crowd. 

CHAPTER LXII. 

SERGEANT LEROY L. KEY--HIS ADVENTURES SUBSEQUENT TO THE EXECUTIONS--HE GOES OUTSIDE AT ANDERSONVILLE ON PAROLE--LABORS IN THE COOK-HOUSE--ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE--IS RECAPTURED AND TAKEN TO MACON--ESCAPES FROM THERE, BUT IS COMPELLED TO RETURN--IS FINALLY EXCHANGED AT SAVANNAH. 

Leroy L. Key, the heroic Sergeant of Company M, Sixteenth IllinoisCavalry, who organized and led the Regulators at Andersonville in theirsuccessful conflict with and defeat of the Raiders, and who presided atthe execution of the six condemned men on the 11th of July, furnishes, at the request of the author, the following story of his prison careersubsequent to that event:

On the 12th day of July, 1864, the day after the hanging of the sixRaiders, by the urgent request of my many friends (of whom you were one), I sought and obtained from Wirz a parole for myself and the six brave menwho assisted as executioners of those desperados. It seemed that youwere all fearful that we might, after what had been done, be assassinatedif we remained in the Stockade; and that we might be overpowered, perhaps, by the friends of the Raiders we had hanged, at a time possibly, when you would not be on hand to give us assistance, and thus lose ourlives for rendering the help we did in getting rid of the worstpestilence we had to contend with. 

On obtaining my parole I was very careful to have it so arranged andmutually understood, between Wirz and myself, that at any time that mysquad (meaning the survivors of my comrades, with whom I was originallycaptured) was sent away from Andersonville, either to be exchanged or togo to another prison, that I should be allowed to go with them. This wasagreed to, and so written in my parole which I carried until itabsolutely wore out. I took a position in the cook-house, and the otherboys either went to work there, or at the hospital or grave-yard asoccasion required. I worked here, and did the best I could for the manystarving wretches inside, in the way of preparing their food, until theeighth day of September, at which time, if you remember, quite a trainload of men were removed, as many of us thought, for the purpose ofexchange; but, as we afterwards discovered, to be taken to anotherprison. Among the crowd so removed was my squad, or, at least, a portionof them, being my intimate mess-mates while in the Stockade. As soon asI found this to be the case I waited on Wirz at his office, and askedpermission to go with them, which he refused, stating that he wascompelled to have men at the cookhouse to cook for those in the Stockadeuntil they were all gone or exchanged. I reminded him of the conditionin my parole, but this only had the effect of making him mad, and hethreatened me with the stocks if I did not go back and resume work. I then and there made up my mind to attempt my escape, considering thatthe parole had first been broken by the man that granted it. 

On inquiry after my return to the cook-house, I found four other boys whowere also planning an escape, and who were only too glad to get me tojoin them and take charge of the affair. Our plans were well laid andwell executed, as the sequel will prove, and in this particular my ownexperience in the endeavor to escape from Andersonville is not entirelydissimilar from yours, though it had different results. I very muchregret that in the attempt I lost my penciled memorandum, in which it wasmy habit to chronicle what went on around me daily, and where I had thenames of my brave comrades who made the effort to escape with me. Unfortunately, I cannot now recall to memory the name of one of them orremember to what commands they belonged. 

I knew that our greatest risk was run in eluding the guards, and that inthe morning we should be compelled to cheat the blood-hounds. The firstwe managed to do very well, not without many hairbreadth escapes, however; but we did succeed in getting through both lines of guards, and found ourselves in the densest pine forest I ever saw. We traveled, as nearly as we could judge, due north all night until daylight. Fromour fatigue and bruises, and the long hours that had elapsed since 8o'clock, the time of our starting, we thought we had come not less thantwelve or fifteen miles. Imagine our surprise and mortification, then, when we could plainly hear the reveille, and almost the Sergeant's voicecalling the roll, while the answers of "Here!" were perfectly distinct. We could not possibly have been more than a mile, or a mile-and-a-half atthe farthest, from the Stockade. 

Our anxiety and mortification were doubled when at the usual hour--as wesupposed--we heard the well-known and long-familiar sound of the hunter'shorn, calling his hounds to their accustomed task of making the circuitof the Stockade, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not any"Yankee" had had the audacity to attempt an escape. The hounds, anticipating, no doubt, this usual daily work, gave forth glad barks ofjoy at being thus called forth to duty. We heard them start, as wasusual, from about the railroad depot (as we imagined), but the soundsgrowing fainter and fainter gave us a little hope that our trail had beenmissed. Only a short time, however, were we allowed this pleasantreflection, for ere long--it could not have been more than an hour--wecould plainly see that they were drawing nearer and nearer. They finallyappeared so close that I advised the boys to climb a tree or sapling inorder to keep the dogs from biting them, and to be ready to surrenderwhen the hunters came up, hoping thus to experience as little misery aspossible, and not dreaming but that we were caught. On, on came thehounds, nearer and nearer still, till we imagined that we could see theundergrowth in the forest shaking by coming in contact with their bodies. Plainer and plainer came the sound of the hunter's voice urging themforward. Our hearts were in our throats, and in the terrible excitementwe wondered if it could be possible for Providence to so arrange it thatthe dogs would pass us. This last thought, by some strange fancy, hadtaken possession of me, and I here frankly acknowledge that I believed itwould happen. Why I believed it, God only knows. My excitement was sogreat, indeed, that I almost lost sight of our danger, and felt likeshouting to the dogs myself, while I came near losing my hold on the treein which I was hidden. By chance I happened to look around at my nearestneighbor in distress. His expression was sufficient to quell anyenthusiasm I might have had, and I, too, became despondent. In a veryfew minutes our suspense was over. The dogs came within not less thanthree hundred yards of us, and we could even see one of them, God inHeaven can only imagine what great joy was then, brought to our achinghearts, for almost instantly upon coming into sight, the hounds struckoff on a different trail, and passed us. Their voices became fainter andfainter, until finally we could hear them no longer. About noon, however, they were called back and taken to camp, but until that time notone of us left our position in the trees. 

When we were satisfied that we were safe for the present, we descended tothe ground to get what rest we could, in order to be prepared for thenight's march, having previously agreed to travel at night and sleep inthe day time. "Our Father, who art in Heaven, " etc. , were the firstwords that escaped my lips, and the first thoughts that came to my mindas I landed on terra firma. Never before, or since, had I experiencedsuch a profound reverence for Almighty God, for I firmly believe thatonly through some mighty invisible power were we at that time deliveredfrom untold tortures. Had we been found, we might have been torn andmutilated by the dogs, or, taken back to Andersonville, have suffered fordays or perhaps weeks in the stocks or chain gang, as the humor of Wirzmight have dictated at the time--either of which would have been almostcertain death. 

It was very fortunate for us that before our escape from Andersonville wewere detailed at the cook-house, for by this means we were enabled tobring away enough food to live for several days without the necessity oftheft. Each one of us had our haversacks full of such small delicaciesas it was possible for us to get when we started, these consisting ofcorn bread and fat bacon--nothing less, nothing more. Yet we managed tosubsist comfortably until our fourth day out, when we happened to comeupon a sweet potato patch, the potatos in which had not been dug. In avery short space of time we were all well supplied with this article, andlived on them raw during that day and the next night. 

Just at evening, in going through a field, we suddenly came across threenegro men, who at first sight of us showed signs of running, thinking, asthey told us afterward, that we were the "patrols. " After explaining tothem who we were and our condition, they took us to a very quiet retreatin the woods, and two of them went off, stating that they would soon beback. In a very short time they returned laden with well cookedprovisions, which not only gave us a good supper, but supplied us for thenext day with all that we wanted. They then guided us on our way forseveral miles, and left us, after having refused compensation for whatthey had done. 

We continued to travel in this way for nine long weary nights, and on themorning of the tenth day, as we were going into the woods to hide asusual, a little before daylight, we came to a small pond at which therewas a negro boy watering two mules before hitching them to a cane mill, it then being cane grinding time in Georgia. He saw us at the same timewe did him, and being frightened put whip to the animals and ran off. We tried every way to stop him, but it was no use. He had the start ofus. We were very fearful of the consequences of this mishap, but had noremedy, and being very tired, could do nothing else but go into thewoods, go to sleep and trust to luck. 

The next thing I remembered was being punched in the ribs by my comradenearest to me, and aroused with the remark, "We are gone up. " On openingmy eyes, I saw four men, in citizens' dress, each of whom had a shot gunready for use. We were ordered to get up. The first question asked uswas:

"Who are you. "

This was spoken in so mild a tone as to lead me to believe that we mightpossibly be in the hands of gentlemen, if not indeed in those of friends. It was some time before any one answered. The boys, by their looks andthe expression of their countenances, seemed to appeal to me for a replyto get them out of their present dilemma, if possible. Before I had timeto collect my thoughts, we were startled by these words, coming from thesame man that had asked the original question:

"You had better not hesitate, for we have an idea who you are, and shouldit prove that we are correct, it will be the worse for you. "

"'Who do you think we are?' I inquired. "

"'Horse thieves and moss-backs, ' was the reply. "

I jumped at the conclusion instantly that in order to save our lives, wehad better at once own the truth. In a very few words I told them who wewere, where we were from, how long we had been on the road, etc. At thisthey withdrew a short distance from us for consultation, leaving us forthe time in terrible suspense as to what our fate might be. Soon, however, they returned and informed us that they would be compelled to takeus to the County Jail, to await further orders from the MilitaryCommander of the District. While they were talking together, I took ahasty inventory of what valuables we had on hand. I found in the crowdfour silver watches, about three hundred dollars in Confederate money, and possibly, about one hundred dollars in greenbacks. Before theirreturn, I told the boys to be sure not to refuse any request I shouldmake. Said I:

"'Gentlemen, we have here four silver watches and several hundred dollarsin Confederate money and greenbacks, all of which we now offer you, ifyou will but allow us to proceed on our journey, we taking our ownchances in the future. '"

This proposition, to my great surprise, was refused. I thought then thatpossibly I had been a little indiscreet in exposing our valuables, but inthis I was mistaken, for we had, indeed, fallen into the hands ofgentlemen, whose zeal for the Lost Cause was greater than that forobtaining worldly wealth, and who not only refused the bribe, but took usto a well-furnished and well-supplied farm house close by, gave us anexcellent breakfast, allowing us to sit at the table in a beautifuldining-room, with a lady at the head, filled our haversacks with good, wholesome food, and allowed us to keep our property, with an admonitionto be careful how we showed it again. We were then put into a wagon andtaken to Hamilton, a small town, the county seat of Hamilton County, Georgia, and placed in jail, where we remained for two days and nights--fearing, always, that the jail would be burned over our heads, as weheard frequent threats of that nature, by the mob on the streets. But the same kind Providence that had heretofore watched over us, seemednot to have deserted us in this trouble. 

One of the days we were confined at this place was Sunday, and somekind-hearted lady or ladies (I only wish I knew their names, as well asthose of the gentlemen who had us first in charge, so that I couldchronicle them with honor here) taking compassion upon our forlorncondition, sent us a splendid dinner on a very large china platter. Whether it was done intentionally or not, we never learned, but it was afact, however, that there was not a knife, fork or spoon upon the dish, and no table to set it upon. It was placed on the floor, around whichwe soon gathered, and, with grateful hearts, we "got away" with it all, in an incredibly short space of time, while many men and boys looked on, enjoying our ludicrous attitudes and manners. 

From here we were taken to Columbus, Ga. , and again placed in jail, andin the charge of Confederate soldiers. We could easily see that we weregradually getting into hot water again, and that, ere many days, we wouldhave to resume our old habits in prison. Our only hope now was that wewould not be returned to Andersonville, knowing well that if we got backinto the clutches of Wirz our chances for life would be slim indeed. From Columbus we were sent by rail to Macon, where we were placed in aprison somewhat similar to Andersonville, but of nothing like itspretensions to security. I soon learned that it was only used as a kindof reception place for the prisoners who were captured in small squads, and when they numbered two or three hundred, they would be shipped toAndersonville, or some other place of greater dimensions and strength. What became of the other boys who were with me, after we got to Macon, I do not know, for I lost sight of them there. The very next day afterour arrival, there were shipped to Andersonville from this prison betweentwo and three hundred men. I was called on to go with the crowd, buthaving had a sufficient experience of the hospitality of that hotel, I concluded to play "old soldier, " so I became too sick to travel. In this way I escaped being sent off four different times. 

Meanwhile, quite a large number of commissioned officers had been sent upfrom Charleston to be exchanged at Rough and Ready. With them were aboutforty more than the cartel called for, and they were left at Macon forten days or two weeks. Among these officers were several of myacquaintance, one being Lieut. Huntly of our regiment (I am not quitesure that I am right in the name of this officer, but I think I am), through whose influence I was allowed to go outside with them on parole. It was while enjoying this parole that I got more familiarly acquaintedwith Captain Hurtell, or Hurtrell, who was in command of the prison atMacon, and to his honor, I here assert, that he was the only gentlemanand the only officer that had the least humane feeling in his breast, who ever had charge of me while a prisoner of war after we were taken outof the hands of our original captors at Jonesville, Va. 

It now became very evident that the Rebels were moving the prisoners fromAndersonville and elsewhere, so as to place them beyond the reach ofSherman and Stoneman. At my present place of confinement the fear of ourrecapture had also taken possession of the Rebel authorities, so theprisoners were sent off in much smaller squads than formerly, frequentlynot more than ten or fifteen in a gang, whereas, before, they neverthought of dispatching less than two or three hundred together. I acknowledge that I began to get very uneasy, fearful that the "oldsoldier" dodge would not be much longer successful, and I would be forcedback to my old haunts. It so happened, however, that I managed to makeit serve me, by getting detailed in the prison hospital as nurse, so thatI was enabled to play another "dodge" upon the Rebel officers. At first, when the Sergeant would come around to find out who were able to walk, with assistance, to the depot, I was shaking with a chill, which, according to my representation, had not abated in the least for severalhours. My teeth were actually chattering at the time, for I had learnedhow to make them do so. I was passed. The next day the orders forremoval were more stringent than had yet been issued, stating that allwho could stand it to be removed on stretchers must go. I concluded atonce that I was gone, so as soon as I learned how matters were, I got outfrom under my dirty blanket, stood up and found I was able to walk, to mygreat astonishment, of course. An officer came early in the morning tomuster us into ranks preparatory for removal. I fell in with the rest. We were marched out and around to the gate of the prison. 

Now, it so happened that just as we neared the gate of the prison, theprisoners were being marched from the Stockade. The officer in charge ofus--we numbering possibly about ten--undertook to place us at the head ofthe column coming out, but the guard in charge of that squad refused tolet him do so. We were then ordered to stand at one side with no guardover us but the officer who had brought us from the Hospital. 

Taking this in at a glance, I concluded that now was my chance to make mysecond attempt to escape. I stepped behind the gate office (a smallframe building with only one room), which was not more than six feet fromme, and as luck (or Providence) would have it, the negro man whose dutyit was, as I knew, to wait on and take care of this office, and who hadtaken quite a liking for me, was standing at the back door. I winked athim and threw him my blanket and the cup, at the same time telling him ina whisper to hide them away for me until he heard from me again. With agrin and a nod, he accepted the trust, and I started down along the wallsof the Stockade alone. In order to make this more plain, and to showwhat a risk I was running at the time, I will state that between theStockade and a brick wall, fully as high as the Stockade fence that wasparallel with it, throughout its entire length on that side, there was aspace of not more than thirty feet. On the outside of this Stockade wasa platform, built for the guards to walk on, sufficiently clear the topto allow them to look inside with ease, and on this side, on theplatform, were three guards. I had traveled about fifty feet only, fromthe gate office, when I heard the command to "Halt!" I did so, of course. 

"Where are you going, you d---d Yank?" said the guard. 

"Going after my clothes, that are over there in the wash, " pointing to asmall cabin just beyond the Stockade, where I happened to know that theofficers had their washing done. 

"Oh, yes, " said he; "you are one of the Yank's that's been on, parole, are you?"

"Yes. "

"Well, hurry up, or you will get left. "

The other guards heard this conversation and thinking it all right I wasallowed to pass without further trouble. I went to the cabin inquestion--for I saw the last guard on the line watching me, and boldlyentered. I made a clear statement to the woman in charge of it about howI had made my escape, and asked her to secrete me in the house untilnight. I was soon convinced, however, from what she told me, as well asfrom my own knowledge of how things were managed in the Confederacy, thatit would not be right for me to stay there, for if the house was searchedand I found in it, it would be the worse for her. Therefore, not wishingto entail misery upon another, I begged her to give me something to eat, and going to the swamp near by, succeeded in getting well withoutdetection. 

I lay there all day, and during the time had a very severe chill andafterwards a burning fever, so that when night came, knowing I could nottravel, I resolved to return to the cabin and spend the night, and givemyself up the next morning. There was no trouble in returning. Ilearned that my fears of the morning had not been groundless, for theguards had actually searched the house for me. The woman told them thatI had got my clothes and left the house shortly after my entrance (whichwas the truth except the part about the clothes), I thanked her verykindly and begged to be allowed to stay in the cabin till morning, whenI would present myself at Captain H. 's office and suffer theconsequences. This she allowed me to do. I shall ever feel grateful tothis woman for her protection. She was white and her given name was"Sallie, " but the other I have forgotten. 

About daylight I strolled over near the office and looked around thereuntil I saw the Captain take his seat at his desk. I stepped into thedoor as soon as I saw that he was not occupied and saluted him "a lamilitaire. "

"Who are you?" he asked; "you look like a Yank. "

"Yes, sir, " said I, "I am called by that name since I was captured in theFederal Army. "

"Well, what are you doing here, and what is your name?"

I told him. 

"Why didn't you answer to your name when it was called at the gateyesterday, sir?"

"I never heard anyone call my name. Where were you?"

"I ran away down into the swamp. "

"Were you re-captured and brought back?"

"No, sir, I came back of my own accord. "

"What do you mean by this evasion?"

"I am not trying to evade, sir, or I might not have been here now. Thetruth is, Captain, I have been in many prisons since my capture, and havebeen treated very badly in all of them, until I came here. "

"I then explained to him freely my escape from Andersonville, and mysubsequent re-capture, how it was that I had played 'old soldier' etc. "

"Now, " said I, "Captain, as long as I am a prisoner of war, I wish tostay with you, or under your command. This is my reason for running awayyesterday, when I felt confident that if I did not do so I would bereturned under Wirz's command, and, if I had been so returned, I wouldhave killed myself rather than submit to the untold tortures which hewould have put me to, for having the audacity to attempt an escape fromhim. "

The Captain's attention was here called to some other matters in hand, and I was sent back into the Stockade with a command very pleasantlygiven, that I should stay there until ordered out, which I verygratefully promised to do, and did. This was the last chance I ever hadto talk to Captain Hurtrell, to my great sorrow, for I had really formeda liking for the man, notwithstanding the fact that he was a Rebel, and acommander of prisoners. 

The next day we all had to leave Macon. Whether we were able or not, theorder was imperative. Great was my joy when I learned that we were onthe way to Savannah and not to Andersonville. We traveled over the sameroad, so well described in one of your articles on Andersonville, andarrived in Savannah sometime in the afternoon of the 21st day ofNovember, 1864. Our squad was placed in some barracks and confined thereuntil the next day. I was sick at the time, so sick in fact, that Icould hardly hold my head up. Soon after, we were taken to the Floridadepot, as they told us, to be shipped to some prison in those dismalswamps. I came near fainting when this was told to us, for I wasconfident that I could not survive another siege of prison life, if itwas anything to compare to-what I had already suffered. When we arrivedat the depot, it was raining. The officer in charge of us wanted to knowwhat train to put us on, for there were two, if not three, trains waitingorders to start. He was told to march us on to a certain flat car, nearby, but before giving the order he demanded a receipt for us, which thetrain officer refused. We were accordingly taken back to our quarters, which proved to be a most fortunate circumstance. 

On the 23d day of November, to our great relief, we were called upon tosign a parole preparatory to being sent down the river on the flat-boatto our exchange ships, then lying in the harbor. When I say we, I meanthose of us that had recently come from Macon, and a few others, who hadalso been fortunate in reaching Savannah in small squads. The other poorfellows, who had already been loaded on the trains, were taken away toFlorida, and many of them never lived to return. On the 24th those of uswho had been paroled were taken on board our ships, and were once moresafely housed under that great, glorious and beautiful Star SpangledBanner. Long may she wave. 

CHAPTER LXIII. 

DREARY WEATHER--THE COLD RAINS DISTRESS ALL AND KILL HUNDREDS--EXCHANGEOF TEN THOUSAND SICK--CAPTAIN BOWES TURNS A PRETTY, BUT NOT VERY HONEST, PENNY. 

As November wore away long-continued, chill, searching rains desolatedour days and nights. The great, cold drops pelted down slowly, dismally, and incessantly. Each seemed to beat through our emaciatedframes against the very marrow of our bones, and to be battering its wayremorselessly into the citadel of life, like the cruel drops that fellfrom the basin of the inquisitors upon the firmly-fastened head of theirvictim, until his reason fled, and the death-agony cramped his heart tostillness. 

The lagging, leaden hours were inexpressibly dreary. Compared with manyothers, we were quite comfortable, as our hut protected us from theactual beating of the rain upon our bodies; but we were much moremiserable than under the sweltering heat of Andersonville, as we layalmost naked upon our bed of pine leaves, shivering in the raw, raspingair, and looked out over acres of wretches lying dumbly on the soddensand, receiving the benumbing drench of the sullen skies without a groanor a motion. 

It was enough to kill healthy, vigorous men, active and resolute, withbodies well-nourished and well clothed, and with minds vivacious andhopeful, to stand these day-and-night-long solid drenchings. No one canimagine how fatal it was to boys whose vitality was sapped by long monthsin Andersonville, by coarse, meager, changeless food, by groveling on thebare earth, and by hopelessness as to any improvement of condition. 

Fever, rheumatism, throat and lung diseases and despair now came tocomplete the work begun by scurvy, dysentery and gangrene, inAndersonville. 

Hundreds, weary of the long struggle, and of hoping against hope, laidthemselves down and yielded to their fate. In the six weeks that we wereat Millen, one man in every ten died. The ghostly pines there sigh overthe unnoted graves of seven hundred boys, for whom life's morning closedin the gloomiest shadows. As many as would form a splendid regiment--asmany as constitute the first born of a populous City--more than threetimes as many as were slain outright on our side in the bloody battle ofFranklin, succumbed to this new hardship. The country for which theydied does not even have a record of their names. They were simplyblotted out of existence; they became as though they had never been. 

About the middle of the month the Rebels yielded to the importunities ofour Government so far as to agree to exchange ten thousand sick. TheRebel Surgeons took praiseworthy care that our Government should profitas little as possible by this, by sending every hopeless case, every manwhose lease of life was not likely to extend much beyond his reaching theparole boat. If he once reached our receiving officers it was all thatwas necessary; he counted to them as much as if he had been a Goliath. A very large portion of those sent through died on the way to our lines, or within a few hours after their transports at being once more under theold Stars and Stripes had moderated. 

The sending of the sick through gave our commandant--Captain Bowes--afine opportunity to fill his pockets, by conniving at the passage of wellmen. There was still considerable money in the hands of a few prisoners. All this, and more, too, were they willing to give for their lives. In the first batch that went away were two of the leading sutlers atAndersonville, who had accumulated perhaps one thousand dollars each bytheir shrewd and successful bartering. It was generally believed thatthey gave every cent to Bowes for the privilege of leaving. I knownothing of the truth of this, but I am reasonably certain that they paidhim very handsomely. 

Soon we heard that one hundred and fifty dollars each had been sufficientto buy some men out; then one hundred, seventy-five, fifty, thirty, twenty, ten, and at last five dollars. Whether the upright Bowes drewthe line at the latter figure, and refused to sell his honor for lessthan the ruling rates of a street-walker's virtue, I know not. It wasthe lowest quotation that came to my knowledge, but he may have gonecheaper. I have always observed that when men or women begin to trafficin themselves, their price falls as rapidly as that of a piece of taintedmeat in hot weather. If one could buy them at the rate they wind upwith, and sell them at their first price, there would be room for anenormous profit. 

The cheapest I ever knew a Rebel officer to be bought was some weeksafter this at Florence. The sick exchange was still going on. I havebefore spoken of the Rebel passion for bright gilt buttons. It used tobe a proverbial comment upon the small treasons that were of dailyoccurrence on both sides, that you could buy the soul of a mean man inour crowd for a pint of corn meal, and the soul of a Rebel guard for ahalf dozen brass buttons. A boy of the Fifth-fourth Ohio, whose home wasat or near Lima, O. , wore a blue vest, with the gilt, bright-trimmedbuttons of a staff officer. The Rebel Surgeon who was examining the sickfor exchange saw the buttons and admired them very much. The boy steppedback, borrowed a knife from a comrade, cut the buttons off, and handedthem to the Doctor. 

"All right, sir, " said he as his itching palm closed over the covetedornaments; "you can pass, " and pass he did to home and friends. 

Captain Bowes's merchandizing in the matter of exchange was as open asthe issuing of rations. His agent in conducting the bargaining was aRaider--a New York gambler and stool-pigeon--whom we called "Mattie. "He dealt quite fairly, for several times when the exchange wasinterrupted, Bowes sent the money back to those who had paid him, and received it again when the exchange was renewed. 

Had it been possible to buy our way out for five cents each Andrews and Iwould have had to stay back, since we had not had that much money formonths, and all our friends were in an equally bad plight. Like almosteverybody else we had spent the few dollars we happened to have onentering prison, in a week or so, and since then we had been entirelypenniless. 

There was no hope left for us but to try to pass the Surgeons asdesperately sick, and we expended our energies in simulating thiscondition. Rheumatism was our forte, and I flatter myself we got up twocases that were apparently bad enough to serve as illustrations for apatent medicine advertisement. But it would not do. Bad as we made ourcondition appear, there were so many more who were infinitely worse, that we stood no show in the competitive examination. I doubt if wewould have been given an average of "50" in a report. We had to standback, and see about one quarter of our number march out and away home. We could not complain at this--much as we wanted to go ourselves, since there could be no question that these poor fellows deserved theprecedence. We did grumble savagely, however, at Captain Bowes'svenality, in selling out chances to moneyed men, since these wereinvariably those who were best prepared to withstand the hardships ofimprisonment, as they were mostly new men, and all had good clothes andblankets. We did not blame the men, however, since it was not in humannature to resist an opportunity to get away--at any cost-from thataccursed place. "All that a man hath he will give for his life, " and Ithink that if I had owned the City of New York in fee simple, I wouldhave given it away willingly, rather than stand in prison another month. 

The sutlers, to whom I have alluded above, had accumulated sufficient tosupply themselves with all the necessaries and some of the comforts oflife, during any probable term of imprisonment, and still have a snugamount left, but they, would rather give it all up and return to servicewith their regiments in the field, than take the chances of any longercontinuance in prison. 

I can only surmise how much Bowes realized out of the prisoners by hisvenality, but I feel sure that it could not have been less than threethousand dollars, and I would not be astonished to learn that it was tenthousand dollars in green. 

CHAPTER LXIV. 

ANOTHER REMOVAL--SHERMAN'S ADVANCE SCARES THE REBELS INTO RUNNING US AWAYFROM MILLEN--WE ARE TAKEN TO SAVANNAH, AND THENCE DOWN THE ATLANTIC &GULF ROAD TO BLACKSHEAR

One night, toward the last of November, there was a general alarm aroundthe prison. A gun was fired from the Fort, the long-roll was beaten inthe various camps of the guards, and the regiments answered by gettingunder arms in haste, and forming near the prison gates. 

The reason for this, which we did not learn until weeks later, was thatSherman, who had cut loose from Atlanta and started on his famous Marchto the Sea, had taken such a course as rendered it probable that Millenwas one of his objective points. It was, therefore, necessary that weshould be hurried away with all possible speed. As we had had no newsfrom Sherman since the end of the Atlanta campaign, and were ignorant ofhis having begun his great raid, we were at an utter loss to account forthe commotion among our keepers. 

About 3 o'clock in the morning the Rebel Sergeants, who called the roll, came in and ordered us to turn out immediately and get ready to move. 

The morning was one of the most cheerless I ever knew. A cold rainpoured relentlessly down upon us half-naked, shivering wretches, as wegroped around in the darkness for our pitiful little belongings of ragsand cooking utensils, and huddled together in groups, urged oncontinually by the curses and abuse of the Rebel officers sent in to getus ready to move. 

Though roused at 3 o'clock, the cars were not ready to receive us tillnearly noon. In the meantime we stood in ranks--numb, trembling, andheart-sick. The guards around us crouched over fires, and shieldedthemselves as best they could with blankets and bits of tent cloth. We had nothing to build fires with, and were not allowed to approachthose of the guards. 

Around us everywhere was the dull, cold, gray, hopeless desolation of theapproach of minter. The hard, wiry grass that thinly covered the onceand sand, the occasional stunted weeds, and the sparse foliage of thegnarled and dwarfish undergrowth, all were parched brown and sere by thefiery heat of the long Summer, and now rattled drearily under thepitiless, cold rain, streaming from lowering clouds that seemed to havefloated down to us from the cheerless summit of some great iceberg; thetall, naked pines moaned and shivered; dead, sapless leaves fell wearilyto the sodden earth, like withered hopes drifting down to deepen someSlough of Despond. 

Scores of our crowd found this the culmination of their misery. Theylaid down upon the ground and yielded to death as s welcome relief, and we left them lying there unburied when we moved to the cars. 

As we passed through the Rebel camp at dawn, on our way to the cars, Andrews and I noticed a nest of four large, bright, new tin pans--a rarething in the Confederacy at that time. We managed to snatch them withoutthe guard's attention being attracted, and in an instant had them wrappedup in our blanket. But the blanket was full of holes, and in spite ofall our efforts, it would slip at the most inconvenient times, so as toshow a broad glare of the bright metal, just when it seemed it could nothelp attracting the attention of the guards or their officers. A dozentimes at least we were on the imminent brink of detection, but we finallygot our treasures safely to the cars, and sat down upon them. 

The cars were open flats. The rain still beat down unrelentingly. Andrews and I huddled ourselves together so as to make our bodies affordas much heat as possible, pulled our faithful old overcoat around us asfar as it would go, and endured the inclemency as best we could. 

Our train headed back to Savannah, and again our hearts warmed up withhopes of exchange. It seemed as if there could be no other purpose oftaking us out of a prison so recently established and at such cost asMillen. 

As we approached the coast the rain ceased, but a piercing cold wind setin, that threatened to convert our soaked rags into icicles. 

Very many died on the way. When we arrived at Savannah almost, if notquite, every car had upon it one whom hunger no longer gnawed or diseasewasted; whom cold had pinched for the last time, and for whom the goldenportals of the Beyond had opened for an exchange that neither Davis norhis despicable tool, Winder, could control. 

We did not sentimentalize over these. We could not mourn; the thousandsthat we had seen pass away made that emotion hackneyed and wearisome;with the death of some friend and comrade as regularly an event of eachday as roll call and drawing rations, the sentiment of grief had becomenearly obsolete. We were not hardened; we had simply come to look upondeath as commonplace and ordinary. To have had no one dead or dyingaround us would have been regarded as singular. 

Besides, why should we feel any regret at the passing away of those whosecondition would probably be bettered thereby! It was difficult to seewhere we who still lived were any better off than they who were gonebefore and now "forever at peace, each in his windowless palace of rest. "If imprisonment was to continue only another month, we would rather bewith them. 

Arriving at Savannah, we were ordered off the cars. A squad from eachcar carried the dead to a designated spot, and land them in a row, composing their limbs as well as possible, but giving no other funeralrites, not even making a record of their names and regiments. Negrolaborers came along afterwards, with carts, took the bodies to somevacant ground, and sunk them out of sight in the sand. 

We were given a few crackers each--the same rude imitation of "hard tack"that had been served out to us when we arrived at Savannah the firsttime, and then were marched over and put upon a train on the Atlantic &Gulf Railroad, running from Savannah along the sea coast towards Florida. What this meant we had little conception, but hope, which sprang eternalin the prisoner's breast, whispered that perhaps it was exchange; thatthere was some difficulty about our vessels coming to Savannah, and wewere being taken to some other more convenient sea port; probably toFlorida, to deliver us to our folks there. We satisfied ourselves thatwe were running along the sea coast by tasting the water in the streamswe crossed, whenever we could get an opportunity to dip up some. As longas the water tasted salty we knew we were near the sea, and hope burnedbrightly. 

The truth was--as we afterwards learned--the Rebels were terribly puzzledwhat to do with us. We were brought to Savannah, but that did not solvethe problem; and we were sent down the Atlantic & Gulf road as atemporary expedient. 

The railroad was the worst of the many bad ones which it was my fortuneto ride upon in my excursions while a guest of the Southern Confederacy. It had run down until it had nearly reached the worn-out condition ofthat Western road, of which an employee of a rival route once said, "thatall there was left of it now was two streaks of rust and the right ofway. " As it was one of the non-essential roads to the SouthernConfederacy, it was stripped of the best of its rolling-stock andmachinery to supply the other more important lines. 

I have before mentioned the scarcity of grease in the South, and thedifficulty of supplying the railroads with lubricants. Apparently therehad been no oil on the Atlantic & Gulf since the beginning of the war, and the screeches of the dry axles revolving in the worn-out boxes wereagonizing. Some thing would break on the cars or blow out on the engineevery few miles, necessitating a long stop for repairs. Then there wasno supply of fuel along the line. When the engine ran out of wood itwould halt, and a couple of negros riding on the tender would assail apanel of fence or a fallen tree with their axes, and after an hour orsuch matter of hard chopping, would pile sufficient wood upon the tenderto enable us to renew our journey. 

Frequently the engine stopped as if from sheer fatigue or inanition. The Rebel officers tried to get us to assist it up the grade bydismounting and pushing behind. We respectfully, but firmly, declined. We were gentlemen of leisure, we said, and decidedly averse to manuallabor; we had been invited on this excursion by Mr. Jeff. Davis and hisfriends, who set themselves up as our entertainers, and it would be agross breach of hospitality to reflect upon our hosts by working ourpassage. If this was insisted upon, we should certainly not visit themagain. Besides, it made no difference to us whether the train got alongor not. We were not losing anything by the delay; we were not anxious togo anywhere. One part of the Southern Confederacy was just as good asanother to us. So not a finger could they persuade any of us to raise tohelp along the journey. 

The country we were traversing was sterile and poor--worse even than thatin the neighborhood of Andersonville. Farms and farmhouses were scarce, and of towns there were none. Not even a collection of houses big enoughto justify a blacksmith shop or a store appeared along the whole route. But few fields of any kind were seen, and nowhere was there a farm whichgave evidence of a determined effort on the part of its occupants to tillthe soil and to improve their condition. 

When the train stopped for wood, or for repairs, or from exhaustion, we were allowed to descend from the cars and stretch our numbed limbs. It did us good in other ways, too. It seemed almost happiness to beoutside of those cursed Stockades, to rest our eyes by looking awaythrough the woods, and seeing birds and animals that were free. Theymust be happy, because to us to be free once more was the summit ofearthly happiness. 

There was a chance, too, to pick up something green to eat, and we werefamishing for this. The scurvy still lingered in our systems, and wewere hungry for an antidote. A plant grew rather plentifully along thetrack that looked very much as I imagine a palm leaf fan does in itsgreen state. The leaf was not so large as an ordinary palm leaf fan, and came directly out of the ground. The natives called it "bull-grass, "but anything more unlike grass I never saw, so we rejected thatnomenclature, and dubbed them "green fans. " They were very hard to pullup, it being usually as much as the strongest of us could do to draw themout of the ground. When pulled up there was found the smallest bit of astock--not as much as a joint of one's little finger--that was eatable. It had no particular taste, and probably little nutriment, still it wasfresh and green, and we strained our weak muscles and enfeebled sinews atevery opportunity, endeavoring to pull up a "green fan. "

At one place where we stopped there was a makeshift of a garden, one ofthose sorry "truck patches, " which do poor duty about Southern cabins forthe kitchen gardens of the Northern, farmers, and produce a few coarsecow peas, a scanty lot of collards (a coarse kind of cabbage, with astalk about a yard long) and some onions to vary the usual side-meat andcorn pone, diet of the Georgia "cracker. " Scanning the patch's ruins ofvine and stalk, Andrews espied a handful of onions, which had; remainedungathered. They tempted him as the apple did Eve. Without stopping tocommunicate his intention to me, he sprang from the car, snatched theonions from their bed, pulled up, half a dozen collard stalks and was onhis way back before the guard could make up his mind to fire upon him. The swiftness of his motions saved his life, for had he been moredeliberate the guard would have concluded he was trying to, escape, andshot him down. As it was he was returning back before the guard couldget his gun up. The onions he had, secured were to us more deliciousthan wine upon the lees. They seemed to find their way into every fiberof our bodies, and invigorate every organ. The collard stalks he hadsnatched up, in the expectation of finding in them something resemblingthe nutritious "heart" that we remembered as children, seeking and, finding in the stalks of cabbage. But we were disappointed. The stalkswere as dry and rotten as the bones of Southern, society. Even hungercould find no meat in them. 

After some days of this leisurely journeying toward the South, we haltedpermanently about eighty-six miles from Savannah. There was no reasonwhy we should stop there more than any place else where we had been orwere likely to go. It seemed as if the Rebels had simply tired ofhauling us, and dumped us, off. We had another lot of dead, accumulatedsince we left Savannah, and the scenes at that place were repeated. 

The train returned for another load of prisoners. 

CHAPTER LXV. 

BLACKSHEAR AND PIERCE COUNTRY--WE TAKE UP NEW QUARTERS, BUT ARE CALLEDOUT FOR EXCHANGE--EXCITEMENT OVER SIGNING THE PAROLE--A HAPPY JOURNEY TOSAVANNAH--GRIEVOUS DISAPPOINTMENT

We were informed that the place we were at was Blackshear, and that itwas the Court House, i. E. , the County seat of Pierce County. Where theykept the Court House, or County seat, is beyond conjecture to me, since Icould not see a half dozen houses in the whole clearing, and not one ofthem was a respectable dwelling, taking even so low a standard forrespectable dwellings as that afforded by the majority of Georgia houses. 

Pierce County, as I have since learned by the census report, is one ofthe poorest Counties of a poor section of a very poor State. A population of less than two thousand is thinly scattered over its fivehundred square miles of territory, and gain a meager subsistence by aweak simulation of cultivating patches of its sandy dunes and plains in"nubbin" corn and dropsical sweet potatos. A few "razor-back" hogs--a species so gaunt and thin that I heard a man once declare that he hadstopped a lot belonging to a neighbor from crawling through the cracks ofa tight board fence by simply tying a knot in their tails--roam thewoods, and supply all the meat used. 

Andrews used to insist that some of the hogs which we saw were so thinthat the connection between their fore and hindquarters was only a singlethickness of skin, with hair on both sides--but then Andrews sometimesseemed to me to have a tendency to exaggerate. 

The swine certainly did have proportions that strongly resembled those ofthe animals which children cut out of cardboard. They were like thegeometrical definition of a superfice--all length and breadth, and nothickness. A ham from them would look like a palm-leaf fan. 

I never ceased to marvel at the delicate adjustment of the development ofanimal life to the soil in these lean sections of Georgia. The poor landwould not maintain anything but lank, lazy men, with few wants, and nonebut lank, lazy men, with few wants, sought a maintenance from it. I mayhave tangled up cause and effect, in this proposition, but if so, thereader can disentangle them at his leisure. 

I was not astonished to learn that it took five hundred square miles ofPierce County land to maintain two thousand "crackers, " even as poorly asthey lived. I should want fully that much of it to support onefair-sized Northern family as it should be. 

After leaving the cars we were marched off into the pine woods, by theside of a considerable stream, and told that this was to be our camp. A heavy guard was placed around us, and a number of pieces of artillerymounted where they would command the camp. 

We started in to make ourselves comfortable, as at Millen, by buildingshanties. The prisoners we left behind followed us, and we soon had ourold crowd of five or six thousand, who had been our companions atSavannah and Millers, again with us. The place looked very favorable forescape. We knew we were still near the sea coast--really not more thanforty miles away--and we felt that if we could once get there we shouldbe safe. Andrews and I meditated plans of escape, and toiled away at ourcabin. 

About a week after our arrival we were startled by an order for the onethousand of us who had first arrived to get ready to move out. In a fewminutes we were taken outside the guard line, massed close together, andinformed in a few words by a Rebel officer that we were about to be takenback to Savannah for exchange. 

The announcement took away our breath. For an instant the rush ofemotion made us speechless, and when utterance returned, the first use wemade of it was to join in one simultaneous outburst of acclamation. Those inside the guard line, understanding what our cheer meant, answeredus with a loud shout of congratulation--the first real, genuine, heartycheering that had been done since receiving the announcement of theexchange at Andersonville, three months before. 

As soon as the excitement had subsided somewhat, the Rebel proceeded toexplain that we would all be required to sign a parole. This set us tothinking. After our scornful rejection of the proposition to enlist inthe Rebel army, the Rebels had felt around among us considerably as tohow we were disposed toward taking what was called the "Non-Combatant'sOath;" that is, the swearing not to take up arms against the SouthernConfederacy again during the war. To the most of us this seemed only alittle less dishonorable than joining the Rebel army. We held that ouroaths to our own Government placed us at its disposal until it chose todischarge us, and we could not make any engagements with its enemies thatmight come in contravention of that duty. In short, it looked very muchlike desertion, and this we did not feel at liberty to consider. 

There were still many among us, who, feeling certain that they could notsurvive imprisonment much longer, were disposed to look favorably uponthe Non-Combatant's Oath, thinking that the circumstances of the casewould justify their apparent dereliction from duty. Whether it would ornot I must leave to more skilled casuists than myself to decide. It wasa matter I believed every man must settle with his own conscience. Theopinion that I then held and expressed was, that if a boy, felt that hewas hopelessly sick, and that he could not live if he remained in prison, he was justified in taking the Oath. In the absence of our own Surgeonshe would have to decide for himself whether he was sick enough to bewarranted in resorting to this means of saving his life. If he was in asgood health as the majority of us were, with a reasonable prospect ofsurviving some weeks longer, there was no excuse for taking the Oath, for in that few weeks we might be exchanged, be recaptured, or make ourescape. I think this was the general opinion of the prisoners. 

While the Rebel was talking about our signing the parole, there flashedupon all of us at the same moment, a suspicion that this was a trap todelude us into signing the Non-Combatant's Oath. Instantly there went upa general shout:

"Read the parole to us. "

The Rebel was handed a blank parole by a companion, and he read over theprinted condition at the top, which was that those signing agreed not tobear arms against the Confederates in the field, or in garrison, not toman any works, assist in any expedition, do any sort of guard duty, servein any military constabulary, or perform any kind of military serviceuntil properly exchanged. 

For a minute this was satisfactory; then their ingrained distrust of anything a Rebel said or did returned, and they shouted:

"No, no; let some of us read it; let Ilinoy' read it--"

The Rebel looked around in a puzzled manner. 

"Who the h--l is 'Illinoy!' Where is he?" said he. 

I saluted and said:

"That's a nickname they give me. "

"Very well, " said he, "get up on this stump and read this parole to thesed---d fools that won't believe me. "

I mounted the stump, took the blank from his hand and read it overslowly, giving as much emphasis as possible to the all-important clauseat the end--"until properly exchanged. " I then said:

"Boys, this seems all right to me, " and they answered, with almost onevoice:

"Yes, that's all right. We'll sign that. "

I was never so proud of the American soldier-boy as at that moment. Theyall felt that signing that paper was to give them freedom and life. Theyknew too well from sad experience what the alternative was. Many feltthat unless released another week would see them in their graves. Allknew that every day's stay in Rebel hands greatly lessened their chancesof life. Yet in all that thousand there was not one voice in favor ofyielding a tittle of honor to save life. They would secure their freedomhonorably, or die faithfully. Remember that this was a miscellaneouscrowd of boys, gathered from all sections of the country, and from manyof whom no exalted conceptions of duty and honor were expected. I wishsome one would point out to me, on the brightest pages of knightlyrecord, some deed of fealty and truth that equals the simple fidelity ofthese unknown heros. I do not think that one of them felt that he wasdoing anything especially meritorious. He only obeyed the naturalpromptings of his loyal heart. 

The business of signing the paroles was then begun in earnest. We wereseparated into squads according to the first letters of our names, allthose whose name began with A being placed in one squad, those beginningwith B, in another, and so on. Blank paroles for each letter were spreadout on boxes and planks at different places, and the signing went onunder the superintendence of a Rebel Sergeant and one of the prisoners. The squad of M's selected me to superintend the signing for us, and Istood by to direct the boys, and sign for the very few who could notwrite. After this was done we fell into ranks again, called the roll ofthe signers, and carefully compared the number of men with the number ofsignatures so that nobody should pass unparoled. The oath was thenadministered to us, and two day's rations of corn meal and fresh beefwere issued. 

This formality removed the last lingering doubt that we had of theexchange being a reality, and we gave way to the happiest emotions. We cheered ourselves hoarse, and the fellows still inside followed ourexample, as they expected that they would share our good fortune in a dayor two. 

Our next performance was to set to work, cook our two days' rations atonce and eat them. This was not very difficult, as the whole supply fortwo days would hardly make one square meal. That done, many of the boyswent to the guard line and threw their blankets, clothing, cookingutensils, etc. , to their comrades who were still inside. No one thoughtthey would have any further use for such things. 

"To-morrow, at this time, thank Heaven, " said a boy near me, as he tossedhis blanket and overcoat back to some one inside, "we'll be in God'scountry, and then I wouldn't touch them d---d lousy old rags with aten-foot pole. "

One of the boys in the M squad was a Maine infantryman, who had been withme in the Pemberton building, in Richmond, and had fashioned himself alittle square pan out of a tin plate of a tobacco press, such as I havedescribed in an earlier chapter. He had carried it with him ever since, and it was his sole vessel for all purposes--for cooking, carrying water, drawing rations, etc. He had cherished it as if it were a farm or a goodsituation. But now, as he turned away from signing his name to theparole, he looked at his faithful servant for a minute in undisguisedcontempt; on the eve of restoration to happier, better things, it was areminder of all the petty, inglorious contemptible trials and sorrows hehad endured; he actually loathed it for its remembrances, and flinging itupon the ground he crushed it out of all shape and usefulness with hisfeet, trampling upon it as he would everything connected with his prisonlife. Months afterward I had to lend this man my little can to cook hisrations in. 

Andrews and I flung the bright new tin pans we had stolen at Milleninside the line, to be scrambled for. It was hard to tell who were themost surprised at their appearance--the Rebels or our own boys--for fewhad any idea that there were such things in the whole Confederacy, andcertainly none looked for them in the possession of two suchpoverty-stricken specimens as we were. We thought it best to retainpossession of our little can, spoon, chess-board, blanket, and overcoat. 

As we marched down and boarded the train, the Rebels confirmed theirprevious action by taking all the guards from around us. Only some eightor ten were sent to the train, and these quartered themselves in thecaboose, and paid us no further attention. 

The train rolled away amid cheering by ourselves and those we leftbehind. One thousand happier boys than we never started on a journey. We were going home. That was enough to wreathe the skies with glory, andfill the world with sweetness and light. The wintry sun had something ofgeniality and warmth, the landscape lost some of its repulsiveness, thedreary palmettos had less of that hideousness which made us regard themas very fitting emblems of treason. We even began to feel a littlegood-humored contempt for our hateful little Brats of guards, and toreflect how much vicious education and surroundings were to be heldresponsible for their misdeeds. 

We laughed and sang as we rolled along toward Savannah--going back muchfaster than the came. We re-told old stories, and repeated old jokes, that had become wearisome months and months ago, but were now freshenedup and given their olden pith by the joyousness of the occasion. Werevived and talked over old schemes gotten up in the earlier days ofprison life, of what "we would do when we got out, " but almost forgottensince, in the general uncertainty of ever getting out. We exchangedaddresses, and promised faithfully to write to each other and tell how wefound everything at home. 

So the afternoon and night passed. We were too excited to sleep, andpassed the hours watching the scenery, recalling the objects we hadpassed on the way to Blackshear, and guessing how near we were toSavannah. 

Though we were running along within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast, with all our guards asleep in the caboose, no one thought of escape. We could step off the cars and walk over to the seashore as easily as aman steps out of his door and walks to a neighboring town, but why shouldwe? Were we not going directly to our vessels in the harbor of Savannah, and was it not better to do this, than to take the chances of escaping, and encounter the difficulties of reaching our blockaders! We thoughtso, and we staid on the cars. 

A cold, gray Winter morning was just breaking as we reached Savannah. Our train ran down in the City, and then whistled sharply and ran back amile or so; it repeated this maneuver two or three times, the evidentdesign being to keep us on the cars until the people were ready toreceive us. Finally our engine ran with all the speed she was capableof, and as the train dashed into the street we found ourselves betweentwo heavy lines of guards with bayonets fixed. 

The whole sickening reality was made apparent by one glance at the guardline. Our parole was a mockery, its only object being to get us toSavannah as easily as possible, and to prevent benefit from our recaptureto any of Sherman's Raiders, who might make a dash for the railroad whilewe were in transit. There had been no intention of exchanging us. Therewas no exchange going on at Savannah. 

After all, I do not think we felt the disappointment as keenly as thefirst time we were brought to Savannah. Imprisonment had stupefied us;we were duller and more hopeless. 

Ordered down out of the cars, we were formed in line in the street. 

Said a Rebel officer:

"Now, any of you fellahs that ah too sick to go to Chahlston, stepfohwahd one pace. "

We looked at each other an instant, and then the whole line steppedforward. We all felt too sick to go to Charleston, or to do anythingelse in the world. 

CHAPTER LXVI. 

SPECIMEN CONVERSATION WITH AN AVERAGE NATIVE GEORGIAN--WE LEARN THATSHERMAN IS HEADING FOR SAVANNAH--THE RESERVES GET A LITTLE SETTLING DOWN. 

As the train left the northern suburbs of Savannah we came upon a sceneof busy activity, strongly contrasting with the somnolent lethargy thatseemed to be the normal condition of the City and its inhabitants. Longlines of earthworks were being constructed, gangs of negros were fellingtrees, building forts and batteries, making abatis, and toiling withnumbers of huge guns which were being moved out and placed in position. 

As we had had no new prisoners nor any papers for some weeks--the papersbeing doubtless designedly kept away from us--we were at a loss to knowwhat this meant. We could not understand this erection of fortificationson that side, because, knowing as we did how well the flanks of the Citywere protected by the Savannah and Ogeeche Rivers, we could not see how aforce from the coast--whence we supposed an attack must come, could hopeto reach the City's rear, especially as we had just come up on the rightflank of the City, and saw no sign of our folks in that direction. 

Our train stopped for a few minutes at the edge of this line of works, and an old citizen who had been surveying the scene with senile interest, tottered over to our car to take a look at us. He was a type of the oldman of the South of the scanty middle class, the small farmer. Longwhite hair and beard, spectacles with great round, staring glasses, a broad-brimmed hat of ante-Revolutionary pattern, clothes that hadapparently descended to him from some ancestor who had come over withOglethorpe, and a two-handed staff with a head of buckhorn, upon which heleaned as old peasants do in plays, formed such an image as recalled tome the picture of the old man in the illustrations in "The Dairyman'sDaughter. " He was as garrulous as a magpie, and as opinionated as aSouthern white always is. Halting in front of our car, he steadiedhimself by planting his staff, clasping it with both lean and skinnyhands, and leaning forward upon it, his jaws then addressed themselves tomotion thus:

"Boys, who mout these be that ye got?"

One of the Guards:--"O, these is some Yanks that we've bin hivin' downat Camp Sumter. "

"Yes?" (with an upward inflection of the voice, followed by a closescrutiny of us through the goggle-eyed glasses, ) "Wall, they're apowerful ornary lookin' lot, I'll declah. "

It will be seen that the old, gentleman's perceptive powers were muchmore highly developed than his politeness. 

"Well, they ain't what ye mout call purty, that's a fack, " said theguard. 

"So yer Yanks, air ye?" said the venerable Goober-Grabber, (the nick-namein the South for Georgians), directing his conversation to me. "Wall, I'm powerful glad to see ye, an' 'specially whar ye can't do no harm;I've wanted to see some Yankees ever sence the beginnin' of the wah, buthev never had no chance. Whah did ye cum from?"

I seemed called upon to answer, and said: "I came from Illinois; most ofthe boys in this car are from Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan andIowa. "

"'Deed! All Westerners, air ye? Wall, do ye know I alluz liked theWesterners a heap sight better than them blue-bellied New EnglandYankees. "

No discussion with a Rebel ever proceeded very far without his making anassertion like this. It was a favorite declaration of theirs, but itsabsurdity was comical, when one remembered that the majority of themcould not for their lives tell the names of the New England States, andcould no more distinguish a Downeaster from an Illinoisan than they couldtell a Saxon from a Bavarian. One day, while I was holding aconversation similar to the above with an old man on guard, anotherguard, who had been stationed near a squad made up of Germans, thattalked altogether in the language of the Fatherland, broke in with:

"Out there by post numbah foahteen, where I wuz yesterday, there's a lotof Yanks who jest jabbered away all the hull time, and I hope I may neversee the back of my neck ef I could understand ary word they said, Arethem the regular blue-belly kind?"

The old gentleman entered upon the next stage of the invariable routineof discussion with a Rebel:

"Wall, what air you'uns down heah, a-fightin' we'uns foh?"

As I had answered this question several hundred times, I had found themost extinguishing reply to be to ask in return:

"What are you'uns coming up into our country to fight we'uns for?"

Disdaining to notice this return in kind, the old man passed on to thenext stage:

"What are you'uns takin' ouah niggahs away from us foh?"

Now, if negros had been as cheap as oreoide watches, it is doubtfulwhether the speaker had ever had money enough in his possession at onetime to buy one, and yet he talked of taking away "ouah niggahs, " as ifthey were as plenty about his place as hills of corn. As a rule, themore abjectly poor a Southerner was, the more readily he worked himselfinto a rage over the idea of "takin' away ouah niggahs. "

I replied in burlesque of his assumption of ownership:

"What are you coming up North to burn my rolling mills and rob my comradehere's bank, and plunder my brother's store, and burn down my uncle'sfactories?"

No reply, to this counter thrust. The old man passed to the thirdinevitable proposition:

"What air you'uns puttin' ouah niggahs in the field to fight we'uns foh?"

Then the whole car-load shouted back at him at once:

"What are you'uns putting blood-hounds on our trails to hunt us down, for?"

Old Man--(savagely), "Waal, ye don't think ye kin ever lick us; leastwayssich fellers as ye air?"

Myself--"Well, we warmed it to you pretty lively until you caught us. There were none of us but what were doing about as good work as any stockyou fellows could turn out. No Rebels in our neighborhood had much tobrag on. We are not a drop in the bucket, either. There's millions morebetter men than we are where we came from, and they are all determined tostamp out your miserable Confederacy. You've got to come to it, sooneror later; you must knock under, sure as white blossoms make littleapples. You'd better make up your mind to it. "

Old Man--"No, sah, nevah. Ye nevah kin conquer us! We're the bravestpeople and the best fighters on airth. Ye nevah kin whip any peoplethat's a fightin' fur their liberty an' their right; an' ye nevah canwhip the South, sah, any way. We'll fight ye until all the men airkilled, and then the wimmen'll fight ye, sah. "

Myself--"Well, you may think so, or you may not. From the way our boysare snatching the Confederacy's real estate away, it begins to look as ifyou'd not have enough to fight anybody on pretty soon. What's themeaning of all this fortifying?"

Old Man--"Why, don't you know? Our folks are fixin' up a place foh BillSherman to butt his brains out gain'. "

"Bill Sherman!" we all shouted in surprise: "Why he ain't within twohundred miles of this place, is he?"

Old Man--"Yes, but he is, tho'. He thinks he's played a sharp Yankeetrick on Hood. He found out he couldn't lick him in a squar' fight, nohow; he'd tried that on too often; so he just sneaked 'round behindhim, and made a break for the center of the State, where he thought therewas lots of good stealin' to be done. But we'll show him. We'll soonhev him just whar we want him, an' we'll learn him how to go traipesin''round the country, stealin' nigahs, burnin' cotton, an' runnin' offfolkses' beef critters. He sees now the scrape he's got into, an' he'stryin' to get to the coast, whar the gun-boats'll help 'im out. Buthe'll nevah git thar, sah; no sah, nevah. He's mouty nigh the end of hisrope, sah, and we'll purty' soon hev him jist whar you fellows air, sah. "

Myself--"Well, if you fellows intended stopping him, why didn't you do itup about Atlanta? What did you let him come clear through the State, burning and stealing, as you say? It was money in your pockets to headhim off as soon as possible. "

Old Man--"Oh, we didn't set nothing afore him up thar except Joe Brown'sPets, these sorry little Reserves; they're powerful little account; nostand-up to'em at all; they'd break their necks runnin' away ef ye somuch as bust a cap near to 'em. "

Our guards, who belonged to these Reserves, instantly felt that theconversation had progressed farther than was profitable and one of themspoke up roughly:

"See heah, old man, you must go off; I can't hev ye talkin' to theseprisoners; hits agin my awdahs. Go 'way now!"

The old fellow moved off, but as he did he flung this Parthian arrow:

"When Sherman gits down deep, he'll find somethin' different from thelittle snots of Reserves he ran over up about Milledgeville; he'll findhe's got to fight real soldiers. "

We could not help enjoying the rage of the guards, over the low estimateplaced upon the fighting ability of themselves and comrades, and as theyraved, around about what they would do if they were only given anopportunity to go into a line of battle against Sherman, we added fuel tothe flames of their anger by confiding to each other that we always "knewthat little Brats whose highest ambition was to murder a defenselessprisoner, could be nothing else than cowards end skulkers in the field. "

"Yaas--sonnies, " said Charlie Burroughs, of the Third Michigan, in thatnasal Yankee drawl, that he always assumed, when he wanted to sayanything very cutting; "you--trundle--bed--soldiers--who've never--seen--a--real--wild--Yankee--don't--know--how--different--they--are--from--the kind--that--are--starved--down--to tameness. They're--jest--as--different--as--a--lion in--a--menagerie--is--from--his--brother--in--the woods--who--has--a--nigger--every day--for-dinner. You--fellows--will--go--into--a--circus--tent--and--throw--tobacco--quids in--the--face--of--the--lion--in--the--cage--when--you--haven't--spunk enough--to--look--a woodchuck--in--the--eye--if--you--met--him--alone. It's--lots--o'--fun--to you--to--shoot--down--a--sick--and--starving-man--in--the--Stockade, but--when--you--see--a--Yank with--a--gun--in--his--hand--your--livers get--so--white--that--chalk--would--make--a--black--mark--on--'em. "

A little later, a paper, which some one had gotten hold of, in somemysterious manner, was secretly passed to me. I read it as I could findopportunity, and communicated its contents to the rest of the boys. The most important of these was a flaming proclamation by Governor JoeBrown, setting forth that General Sherman was now traversing the State, committing all sorts of depredations; that he had prepared the way forhis own destruction, and the Governor called upon all good citizens torise en masse, and assist in crushing the audacious invader. Bridgesmust be burned before and behind him, roads obstructed, and every inch ofsoil resolutely disputed. 

We enjoyed this. It showed that the Rebels were terribly alarmed, and webegan to feel some of that confidence that "Sherman will come out allright, " which so marvelously animated all under his command. 

CHAPTER LXVII. 

OFF TO CHARLESTON--PASSING THROUGH THE RICE SWAMPS--TWO EXTREMES OFSOCIETY--ENTRY INTO CHARLESTON--LEISURELY WARFARE--SHELLING THE CITY ATREGULAR INTERVALS--WE CAMP IN A MASS OF RUINS--DEPARTURE FOR FLORENCE. 

The train started in a few minutes after the close of the conversationwith the old Georgian, and we soon came to and crossed the Savannah Riverinto South Carolina. The river was wide and apparently deep; the tidewas setting back in a swift, muddy current; the crazy old bridge creakedand shook, and the grinding axles shrieked in the dry journals, as wepulled across. It looked very much at times as if we were to all crashdown into the turbid flood--and we did not care very much if we did, ifwe were not going to be exchanged. 

The road lay through the tide swamp region of South Carolina, a peculiarand interesting country. Though swamps and fens stretched in alldirections as far as the eye could reach, the landscape was more gratefulto the eye than the famine-stricken, pine-barrens of Georgia, which hadbecome wearisome to the sight. The soil where it appeared, was rich, vegetation was luxuriant; great clumps of laurel showed glossy richnessin the greenness of its verdure, that reminded us of the fresh color ofthe vegetation of our Northern homes, so different from the parched andimpoverished look of Georgian foliage. Immense flocks of wild fowlfluttered around us; the Georgian woods were almost destitute of livingcreatures; the evergreen live-oak, with its queer festoons of Spanishmoss, and the ugly and useless palmettos gave novelty and interest to theview. 

The rice swamps through which we were passing were the princelypossessions of the few nabobs who before the war stood at the head ofSouth Carolina aristocracy--they were South Carolina, in fact, asabsolutely as Louis XIV. Was France. In their hands--but a few score innumber--was concentrated about all there was of South Carolina education, wealth, culture, and breeding. They represented a pinchbeck imitation ofthat regime in France which was happily swept out of existence by theRevolution, and the destruction of which more than compensated for everydrop of blood shed in those terrible days. Like the provincial 'grandesseigneurs' of Louis XVI's reign, they were gay, dissipated and turbulent;"accomplished" in the superficial acquirements that made the "gentleman"one hundred years ago, but are grotesquely out of place in this sensible, solid age, which demands that a man shall be of use, and not merely forshow. They ran horses and fought cocks, dawdled through society whenyoung, and intrigued in politics the rest of their lives, with frequentspice-work of duels. Esteeming personal courage as a supreme humanvirtue, and never wearying of prating their devotion to the higheststandard of intrepidity, they never produced a General who was evenmediocre; nor did any one ever hear of a South Carolina regiment gainingdistinction. Regarding politics and the art of government as, equallywith arms, their natural vocations, they have never given the Nation astatesman, and their greatest politicians achieved eminence by advocatingideas which only attracted attention by their balefulness. 

Still further resembling the French 'grandes seigneurs' of the eighteenthcentury, they rolled in wealth wrung from the laborer by reducing therewards of his toil to the last fraction that would support his life andstrength. The rice culture was immensely profitable, because they hadfound the secret for raising it more cheaply than even the pauper laborerof the of world could. Their lands had cost them nothing originally, theimprovements of dikes and ditches were comparatively, inexpensive, thetaxes were nominal, and their slaves were not so expensive to keep asgood horses in the North. 

Thousands of the acres along the road belonged to the Rhetts, thousandsto the Heywards, thousands to the Manigault the Lowndes, the Middletons, the Hugers, the Barnwells, and the Elliots--all names too well known inthe history of our country's sorrows. Occasionally one of their statelymansions could be seen on some distant elevation, surrounded by noble oldtrees, and superb grounds. Here they lived during the healthy part ofthe year, but fled thence to summer resort in the highlands as themiasmatic season approached. 

The people we saw at the stations along our route were melancholyillustrations of the evils of the rule of such an oligarchy. There wasno middle class visible anywhere--nothing but the two extremes. A manwas either a "gentleman, " and wore white shirt and city-made clothes, or he was a loutish hind, clad in mere apologies for garments. Wethought we had found in the Georgia "cracker" the lowest substratum ofhuman society, but he was bright intelligence compared to the SouthCarolina "clay-eater" and "sand-hiller. " The "cracker" always gave hopesto one that if he had the advantage of common schools, and could be madeto understand that laziness was dishonorable, he might develop intosomething. There was little foundation for such hope in the average lowSouth Carolinian. His mind was a shaking quagmire, which did not admitof the erection of any superstructure of education upon it. The SouthCarolina guards about us did not know the name of the next town, thoughthey had been raised in that section. They did not know how far it wasthere, or to any place else, and they did not care to learn. They had noconception of what the war was being waged for, and did not want to findout; they did not know where their regiment was going, and did notremember where it had been; they could not tell how long they had been inservice, nor the time they had enlisted for. They only remembered thatsometimes they had had "sorter good times, " and sometimes "they had beenpowerful bad, " and they hoped there would be plenty to eat wherever theywent, and not too much hard marching. Then they wondered "whar afeller'd be likely to make a raise of a canteen of good whisky?"

Bad as the whites were, the rice plantation negros were even worse, if that were possible. Brought to the country centuries ago, as brutalsavages from Africa, they had learned nothing of Christian civilization, except that it meant endless toil, in malarious swamps, under the lash ofthe taskmaster. They wore, possibly, a little more clothing than theirSenegambian ancestors did; they ate corn meal, yams and rice, instead ofbananas, yams and rice, as their forefathers did, and they had learned abastard, almost unintelligible, English. These were the sole blessingsacquired by a transfer from a life of freedom in the jungles of the GoldCoast, to one of slavery in the swamps of the Combahee. 

I could not then, nor can I now, regret the downfall of a system ofsociety which bore such fruits. 

Towards night a distressingly cold breeze, laden with a penetrating mist, set in from the sea, and put an end to future observations by making ustoo uncomfortable to care for scenery or social conditions. We wantedmost to devise a way to keep warm. Andrews and I pulled our overcoat andblanket closely about us, snuggled together so as to make each one'smeager body afford the other as much heat as possible--and endured. 

We became fearfully hungry. It will be recollected that we ate the wholeof the two days' rations issued to us at Blackshear at once, and we hadreceived nothing since. We reached the sullen, fainting stage of greathunger, and for hours nothing was said by any one, except an occasionalbitter execration on Rebels and Rebel practices. 

It was late at night when we reached Charleston. The lights of the City, and the apparent warmth and comfort there cheered us up somewhat with thehopes that we might have some share in them. Leaving the train, we weremarched some distance through well-lighted streets, in which were plentyof people walking to and fro. There were many stores, apparently stockedwith goods, and the citizens seemed to be going about their business verymuch as was the custom up North. 

At length our head of column made a "right turn, " and we marched awayfrom the lighted portion of the City, to a part which I could see throughthe shadows was filled with ruins. An almost insupportable odor of gas, escaping I suppose from the ruptured pipes, mingled with the cold, rasping air from the sea, to make every breath intensely disagreeable. 

As I saw the ruins, it flashed upon me that this was the burnt districtof the city, and they were putting us under the fire of our own guns. At first I felt much alarmed. Little relish as I had on generalprinciples, for being shot I had much less for being killed by our ownmen. Then I reflected that if they put me there--and kept me--a guardwould have to be placed around us, who would necessarily be in as muchclanger as we were, and I knew I could stand any fire that a Rebel could. 

We were halted in a vacant lot, and sat down, only to jump up the nextinstant, as some one shouted:

"There comes one of 'em!"

It was a great shell from the Swamp Angel Battery. Starting from a pointmiles away, where, seemingly, the sky came down to the sea, was a narrowribbon of fire, which slowly unrolled itself against the star-lit vaultover our heads. On, on it came, and was apparently following the skydown to the horizon behind us. As it reached the zenith, there came toour ears a prolonged, but not sharp, "Whish--ish-ish-ish-ish!"

We watched it breathlessly, and it seemed to be long minutes in runningits course; then a thump upon the ground, and a vibration, told that ithad struck. For a moment there was a dead silence. Then came a loudroar, and the crash of breaking timber and crushing walls. The shell hadbursted. 

Ten minutes later another shell followed, with like results. For awhilewe forgot all about hunger in the excitement of watching the messengersfrom "God's country. " What happiness to be where those shells came from. Soon a Rebel battery of heavy guns somewhere near and in front of us, waked up, and began answering with dull, slow thumps that made the groundshudder. This continued about an hour, when it quieted down again, butour shells kept coming over at regular intervals with the same slowdeliberation, the same prolonged warning, and the same dreadful crashwhen they struck. They had already gone on this way for over a year, and were to keep it up months longer until the City was captured. 

The routine was the same from day to day, month in, and month out, fromearly in August, 1863, to the middle of April, 1865. Every few minutesduring the day our folks would hurl a great shell into the beleagueredCity, and twice a day, for perhaps an hour each time, the Rebel batterieswould talk back. It must have been a lesson to the Charlestonians of thepersistent, methodical spirit of the North. They prided themselves onthe length of the time they were holding out against the enemy, and thepapers each day had a column headed:

 "390th DAY OF THE SIEGE, "

or 391st, 393d, etc. , as the number might be since our people opened fireupon the City. The part where we lay was a mass of ruins. Many largebuildings had been knocked down; very many more were riddled with shotholes and tottering to their fall. One night a shell passed through alarge building about a quarter of a mile from us. It had already beenstruck several times, and was shaky. The shell went through with adeafening crash. All was still for an instant; then it exploded with adull roar, followed by more crashing of timber and walls. The sound diedaway and was succeeded by a moment of silence. Finally the greatbuilding fell, a shapeless heap of ruins, with a noise like that of adozen field pieces. We wanted to cheer but restrained ourselves. Thiswas the nearest to us that any shell came. 

There was only one section of the City in reach of our guns and this wasnearly destroyed. Fires had come to complete the work begun by theshells. Outside of the boundaries of this region, the people feltthemselves as safe as in one of our northern Cities to-day. They had anabiding faith that they were clear out of reach of any artillery that wecould mount. I learned afterwards from some of the prisoners, who wentinto Charleston ahead of us, and were camped on the race course outsideof the City, that one day our fellows threw a shell clear over the Cityto this race course. There was an immediate and terrible panic among thecitizens. They thought we had mounted some new guns of increased range, and now the whole city must go. But the next shell fell inside theestablished limits, and those following were equally well behaved, sothat the panic abated. I have never heard any explanation of the matter. It may have been some freak of the gun-squad, trying the effect of anextra charge of powder. Had our people known of its signal effect, theycould have depopulated the place in a few hours. 

The whole matter impressed me queerly. The only artillery I had everseen in action were field pieces. They made an earsplitting crash whenthey were discharged, and there was likely to be oceans of trouble foreverybody in that neighborhood about that time. I reasoned from thisthat bigger guns made a proportionally greater amount of noise, and bredan infinitely larger quantity of trouble. Now I was hearing the giantsof the world's ordnance, and they were not so impressive as a livelybattery of three-inch rifles. Their reports did not threaten to shattereverything, but had a dull resonance, something like that produced bystriking an empty barrel with a wooden maul. Their shells did not comeat one in that wildly, ferocious way, with which a missile from asix-pounder convinces every fellow in a long line of battle that he isthe identical one it is meant for, but they meandered over in a lazy, leisurely manner, as if time was no object and no person would feel putout at having to wait for them. Then, the idea of firing every quarterof an hour for a year--fixing up a job for a lifetime, as Andrewsexpressed it, --and of being fired back at for an hour at 9 o'clock everymorning and evening; of fifty thousand people going on buying andselling, eating, drinking and sleeping, having dances, drives and balls, marrying and giving in marriage, all within a few hundred yards of wherethe shells were falling-struck me as a most singular method ofconducting warfare. 

We received no rations until the day after our arrival, and then theywere scanty, though fair in quality. We were by this time so hungry andfaint that we could hardly move. We did nothing for hours but lie aroundon the ground and try to forget how famished we were. At theannouncement of rations, many acted as if crazy, and it was all that theSergeants could do to restrain the impatient mob from tearing the foodaway and devouring it, when they were trying to divide it out. Verymany--perhaps thirty--died during the night and morning. No blame forthis is attached to the Charlestonians. They distinguished themselvesfrom the citizens of every other place in the Southern Confederacy wherewe had been, by making efforts to relieve our condition. They sent quitea quantity of food to us, and the Sisters of Charity came among us, seeking and ministering to the sick. I believe our experience was theusual one. The prisoners who passed through Charleston before us allspoke very highly of the kindness shown them by the citizens there. 

We remained in Charleston but a few days. One night we were marched downto a rickety depot, and put aboard a still more rickety train. Whenmorning came we found ourselves running northward through a pine barrencountry that resembled somewhat that in Georgia, except that the pine wasshort-leaved, there was more oak and other hard woods, and the vegetationgenerally assumed a more Northern look. We had been put into close boxcars, with guards at the doors and on top. During the night quite anumber of the boys, who had fabricated little saws out of case knives andfragments of hoop iron, cut holes through the bottoms of the cars, through which they dropped to the ground and escaped, but were mostlyrecaptured after several days. There was no hole cut in our car, and soAndrews and I staid in. 

Just at dusk we came to the insignificant village of Florence, thejunction of the road leading from Charleston to Cheraw with that runningfrom Wilmington to Kingsville. It was about one hundred and twenty milesfrom Charleston, and the same distance from Wilmington. As our train ranthrough a cut near the junction a darky stood by the track gazing at uscuriously. When the train had nearly passed him he started to run up thebank. In the imperfect light the guards mistook him for one of us whohad jumped from the train. They all fired, and the unlucky negro fell, pierced by a score of bullets. 

That night we camped in the open field. When morning came we saw, a fewhundred yards from us, a Stockade of rough logs, with guards stationedaround it. It was another prison pen. They were just bringing the deadout, and two men were tossing the bodies up into the four-horse wagonwhich hauled them away for burial. The men were going about theirbusiness as coolly as if loading slaughtered hogs. 'One of them wouldcatch the body by the feet, and the other by the arms. They would giveit a swing--"One, two, three, " and up it would go into the wagon. Thisfilled heaping full with corpses, a negro mounted the wheel horse, grasped the lines, and shouted to his animals:

"Now, walk off on your tails, boys. "

The horses strained, the wagon moved, and its load of what were oncegallant, devoted soldiers, was carted off to nameless graves. This was apart of the daily morning routine. 

As we stood looking at the sickeningly familiar architecture of theprison pen, a Seventh Indianian near me said, in tones of wearisomedisgust:

"Well, this Southern Confederacy is the d---dest country to stand logs onend on God Almighty's footstool. "

CHAPTER LXVIII. 

FIRST DAYS AT FLORENCE--INTRODUCTION TO LIEUTENANT BARRETT, THERED-HEADED KEEPER--A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF OUR NEW QUARTERS--WINDERS MALIGNINFLUENCE MANIFEST. 

It did not require a very acute comprehension to understand that theStockade at which we were gazing was likely to be our abiding place forsome indefinite period in the future. 

As usual, this discovery was the death-warrant of many whose lives hadonly been prolonged by the hoping against hope that the movement wouldterminate inside our lines. When the portentous palisades showed to afatal certainty that the word of promise had been broken to their hearts, they gave up the struggle wearily, lay back on the frozen ground, anddied. 

Andrews and I were not in the humor for dying just then. The longimprisonment, the privations of hunger, the scourging by the elements, the death of four out of every five of our number had indeed dulled andstupefied us--bred an indifference to our own suffering and a seemingcallosity to that of others, but there still burned in our hearts, and inthe hearts of every one about us, a dull, sullen, smoldering fire of hateand defiance toward everything Rebel, and a lust for revenge upon thosewho had showered woes upon our heads. There was little fear of death;even the King of Terrors loses most of his awful character upon tolerablyclose acquaintance, and we had been on very intimate terms with him for ayear now. He was a constant visitor, who dropped in upon us at all hoursof the day and night, and would not be denied to any one. 

Since my entry into prison fully fifteen thousand boys had died aroundme, and in no one of them had I seen the least, dread or reluctance togo. I believe this is generally true of death by disease, everywhere. Our ever kindly mother, Nature, only makes us dread death when shedesires us to preserve life. When she summons us hence she tenderlyprovides that we shall willingly obey the call. 

More than for anything else, we wanted to live now to triumph over theRebels. To simply die would be of little importance, but to dieunrevenged would be fearful. If we, the despised, the contemned, theinsulted, the starved and maltreated; could live to come back to ouroppressors as the armed ministers of retribution, terrible in theremembrance of the wrongs of ourselves and comrade's, irresistible as theagents of heavenly justice, and mete out to them that Biblical return ofseven-fold of what they had measured out to us, then we would be contentto go to death afterwards. Had the thrice-accursed Confederacy and ourmalignant gaolers millions of lives, our great revenge would have stomachfor them all. 

The December morning was gray and leaden; dull, somber, snow-laden cloudsswept across the sky before the soughing wind. 

The ground, frozen hard and stiff, cut and hurt our bare feet at everystep; an icy breeze drove in through the holes in our rags, and smote ourbodies like blows from sticks. The trees and shrubbery around were asnaked and forlorn as in the North in the days of early Winter before thesnow comes. 

Over and around us hung like a cold miasma the sickening odor peculiar toSouthern forests in Winter time. 

Out of the naked, repelling, unlovely earth rose the Stockade, in hideousugliness. At the gate the two men continued at their monotonous labor oftossing the dead of the previous day into the wagon-heaving into thatrude hearse the inanimate remains that had once tempted gallant, manlyhearts, glowing with patriotism and devotion to country--piling uplistlessly and wearily, in a mass of nameless, emaciated corpses, fluttering with rags, and swarming with vermin, the pride, the joy of ahundred fair Northern homes, whose light had now gone out forever. 

Around the prison walls shambled the guards, blanketed like Indians, and with faces and hearts of wolves. Other Rebels--also clad in dingybutternut--slouched around lazily, crouched over diminutive fires, and talked idle gossip in the broadest of "nigger" dialect. Officersswelled and strutted hither and thither, and negro servants loiteredaround, striving to spread the least amount of work over the greatestamount of time. 

While I stood gazing in gloomy silence at the depressing surroundingsAndrews, less speculative and more practical, saw a good-sized pine stumpnear by, which had so much of the earth washed away from it that itlooked as if it could be readily pulled up. We had had bitter experiencein other prisons as to the value of wood, and Andrews reasoned that as wewould be likely to have a repetition of this in the Stockade we wereabout to enter, we should make an effort to secure the stump. We bothattacked it, and after a great deal of hard work, succeeded in uprootingit. It was very lucky that we did, since it was the greatest help inpreserving our lives through the three long months that we remained atFlorence. 

While we were arranging our stump so as to carry it to the bestadvantage, a vulgar-faced man, with fiery red hair, and wearing on hiscollar the yellow bars of a Lieutenant, approached. This was LieutenantBarrett, commandant of the interior of the prison, and a more inhumanwretch even than Captain Wirz, because he had a little more brains thanthe commandant at Andersonville, and this extra intellect was whollydevoted to cruelty. As he came near he commanded, in loud, brutal tones:

"Attention, Prisoners!"

We all stood up and fell in in two ranks. Said he:

"By companies, right wheel, march!"

This was simply preposterous. As every soldier knows, wheeling bycompanies is one of the most difficult of manuvers, and requires somepreparation of a battalion before attempting to execute it. Our thousandwas made up of infantry, cavalry and artillery, representing, perhaps, one hundred different regiments. We had not been divided off intocompanies, and were encumbered with blankets, tents, cooking utensils, wood, etc. , which prevented our moving with such freedom as to make acompany wheel, even had we been divided up into companies and drilled forthe maneuver. The attempt to obey the command was, of course, aludicrous failure. The Rebel officers standing near Barrett laughedopenly at his stupidity in giving such an order, but he was furious. Hehurled at us a torrent of the vilest abuse the corrupt imagination of mancan conceive, and swore until he was fairly black in the face. He firedhis revolver off over our heads, and shrieked and shouted until he had tostop from sheer exhaustion. Another officer took command then, andmarched us into prison. 

We found this a small copy of Andersonville. There was a stream runningnorth and south, on either side of which was a swamp. A Stockade ofrough logs, with the bark still on, inclosed several acres. The front ofthe prison was toward the West. A piece of artillery stood before thegate, and a platform at each corner bore a gun, elevated high enough torake the whole inside of the prison. A man stood behind each of theseguns continually, so as to open with them at any moment. The earth wasthrown up against the outside of the palisades in a high embankment, along the top of which the guards on duty walked, it being high enough toelevate their head, shoulders and breasts above the tops of the logs. Inside the inevitable dead-line was traced by running a furrow around theprison-twenty feet from the Stockade--with a plow. In one respect it wasan improvement on Andersonville: regular streets were laid off, so thatmotion about the camp was possible, and cleanliness was promoted. Also, the crowd inside was not so dense as at Camp Sumter. 

The prisoners were divided into hundreds and thousands, with Sergeants atthe heads of the divisions. A very good police force-organized andofficered by the prisoners--maintained order and prevented crime. Theftsand other offenses were punished, as at Andersonville, by the Chief ofPolice sentencing the offenders to be spanked or tied up. 

We found very many of our Andersonville acquaintances inside, and forseveral days comparisons of experience were in order. They had leftAndersonville a few days after us, but were taken to Charleston insteadof Savannah. The same story of exchange was dinned into their ears untilthey arrived at Charleston, when the truth was told them, that noexchange was contemplated, and that they had been deceived for thepurpose of getting them safely out of reach of Sherman. 

Still they were treated well in Charleston--better than they had beenanywhere else. Intelligent physicians had visited the sick, prescribedfor them, furnished them with proper medicines, and admitted the worstcases to the hospital, where they were given something of the care thatone would expect in such an institution. Wheat bread, molasses and ricewere issued to them, and also a few spoonfuls of vinegar, daily, whichwere very grateful to them in their scorbutic condition. The citizenssent in clothing, food and vegetables. The Sisters of Charity wereindefatigable in ministering to the sick and dying. Altogether, theirrecollections of the place were quite pleasant. 

Despite the disagreeable prominence which the City had in the Secessionmovement, there was a very strong Union element there, and many men foundopportunity to do favors to the prisoners and reveal to them how muchthey abhorred Secession. 

After they had been in Charleston a fortnight or more, the yellow feverbroke out in the City, and soon extended its ravages to the prisoners, quite a number dying from it. 

Early in October they had been sent away from the City to their presentlocation, which was then a piece of forest land. There was no stockadeor other enclosure about them, and one night they forced the guard-line, about fifteen hundred escaping, under a pretty sharp fire from theguards. After getting out they scattered, each group taking a differentroute, some seeking Beaufort, and other places along the seaboard, andthe rest trying to gain the mountains. The whole State was thrown intothe greatest perturbation by the occurrence. The papers magnified theproportion of the outbreak, and lauded fulsomely the gallantry of theguards in endeavoring to withstand the desperate assaults of the frenziedYankees. The people were wrought up into the highest alarm as tooutrages and excesses that these flying desperados might be expected tocommit. One would think that another Grecian horse, introduced into theheart of the Confederate Troy, had let out its fatal band of armed men. All good citizens were enjoined to turn out and assist in arresting therunaways. The vigilance of all patrolling was redoubled, and such wasthe effectiveness of the measures taken that before a month nearly everyone of the fugitives had been retaken and sent back to Florence. Few ofthese complained of any special ill-treatment by their captors, whilemany reported frequent acts of kindness, especially when their captorsbelonged to the middle and upper classes. The low-down class--theclay-eaters--on the other hand, almost always abused their prisoners, and sometimes, it is pretty certain, murdered them in cold blood. 

About this time Winder came on from Andersonville, and then everythingchanged immediately to the complexion of that place. He began theerection of the Stockade, and made it very strong. The Dead Line wasestablished, but instead of being a strip of plank upon the top of lowposts, as at Andersonville, it was simply a shallow trench, which wassometimes plainly visible, and sometimes not. The guards always resolvedmatters of doubt against the prisoners, and fired on them when theysupposed them too near where the Dead Line ought to be. Fifteen acres ofground were enclosed by the palisades, of which five were taken up by thecreek and swamp, and three or four more by the Dead Line; main streets, etc. , leaving about seven or eight for the actual use of the prisoners, whose number swelled to fifteen thousand by the arrivals fromAndersonville. This made the crowding together nearly as bad as at thelatter place, and for awhile the same fatal results followed. Themortality, and the sending away of several thousand on the sick exchange, reduced the aggregate number at the time of our arrival to about eleventhousand, which gave more room to all, but was still not one-twentieth ofthe space which that number of men should have had. 

No shelter, nor material for constructing any, was furnished. The groundwas rather thickly wooded, and covered with undergrowth, when theStockade was built, and certainly no bit of soil was ever so thoroughlycleared as this was. The trees and brush were cut down and worked upinto hut building materials by the same slow and laborious process that Ihave described as employed in building our huts at Millen. 

Then the stumps were attacked for fuel, and with such persistentthoroughness that after some weeks there was certainly not enough woodymaterial left in that whole fifteen acres of ground to kindle a smallkitchen fire. The men would begin work on the stump of a good sizedtree, and chip and split it off painfully and slowly until they hadfollowed it to the extremity of the tap root ten or fifteen feet belowthe surface. The lateral roots would be followed with equaldetermination, and trenches thirty feet long, and two or three feet deepwere dug with case-knives and half-canteens, to get a root as thick asone's wrist. The roots of shrubs and vines were followed up and gatheredwith similar industry. The cold weather and the scanty issues of woodforced men to do this. 

The huts constructed were as various as the materials and the tastes ofthe builders. Those who were fortunate enough to get plenty of timberbuilt such cabins as I have described at Millen. Those who had less ekedout their materials in various ways. Most frequently all that a squad ofthree or four could get would be a few slender poles and some brush. They would dig a hole in the ground two feet deep and large enough forthem all to lie in. Then putting up a stick at each end and laying aridge pole across, they, would adjust the rest of their material so asto form sloping sides capable of supporting earth enough to make awater-tight roof. The great majority were not so well off as these, andhad absolutely, nothing of which to build. They had recourse to theclay of the swamp, from which they fashioned rude sun-dried bricks, andmade adobe houses, shaped like a bee hive, which lasted very well untila hard rain came, when they dissolved into red mire about the bodies oftheir miserable inmates. 

Remember that all these makeshifts were practiced within a half-a-mile ofan almost boundless forest, from which in a day's time the camp couldhave been supplied with material enough to give every man a comfortablehut. 

CHAPTER LXIX. 

BARRETT'S INSANE CRUELTY--HOW HE PUNISHED THOSE ALLEGED TO BE ENGAGED INTUNNELING--THE MISERY IN THE STOCKADE--MEN'S LIMBS ROTTING OFF WITH DRYGANGRENE. 

Winder had found in Barrett even a better tool for his cruel purposesthan Wirz. The two resembled each other in many respects. Both wereabsolutely destitute of any talent for commanding men, and could no morehandle even one thousand men properly than a cabin boy could navigate agreat ocean steamer. Both were given to the same senseless fits ofinsane rage, coming and going without apparent cause, during which theyfired revolvers and guns or threw clubs into crowds of prisoners, orknocked down such as were within reach of their fists. These exhibitionswere such as an overgrown child might be expected to make. They did notsecure any result except to increase the prisoners' wonder that suchill-tempered fools could be given any position of responsibility. 

A short time previous to our entry Barrett thought he had reason tosuspect a tunnel. He immediately announced that no more rations shouldbe issued until its whereabouts was revealed and the ringleaders in theattempt to escape delivered up to him. The rations at that time werevery scanty, so that the first day they were cut off the sufferings werefearful. The boys thought he would surely relent the next day, but theydid not know their man. He was not suffering any, why should he relaxhis severity? He strolled leisurely out from his dinner table, pickinghis teeth with his penknife in the comfortable, self-satisfied way of acoarse man who has just filled his stomach to his entire content--anattitude and an air that was simply maddening to the famishing wretches, of whom he inquired tantalizingly:

"Air ye're hungry enough to give up them G-d d d s--s of b----s yet?"

That night thirteen thousand men, crazy, fainting with hunger, walkedhither and thither, until exhaustion forced them to become quiet, sat onthe ground and pressed their bowels in by leaning against sticks of woodlaid across their thighs; trooped to the Creek and drank water untiltheir gorges rose and they could swallow no more--did everything in factthat imagination could suggest--to assuage the pangs of the deadlygnawing that was consuming their vitals. All the cruelties of theterrible Spanish Inquisition, if heaped together, would not sum up agreater aggregate of anguish than was endured by them. The third daycame, and still no signs of yielding by Barrett. The Sergeants counseledtogether. Something must be done. The fellow would starve the wholecamp to death with as little compunction as one drowns blind puppies. It was necessary to get up a tunnel to show Barrett, and to get boys whowould confess to being leaders in the work. A number of gallant fellowsvolunteered to brave his wrath, and save the rest of their comrades. It required high courage to do this, as there was no question but thatthe punishment meted out would be as fearful as the cruel mind of thefellow could conceive. The Sergeants decided that four would besufficient to answer the purpose; they selected these by lot, marchedthem to the gate and delivered them over to Barrett, who thereuponordered the rations to be sent in. He was considerate enough, too, tofeed the men he was going to torture. 

The starving men in the Stockade could not wait after the rations wereissued to cook them, but in many instances mixed the meal up with water, and swallowed it raw. Frequently their stomachs, irritated by the longfast, rejected the mess; any very many had reached the stage where theyloathed food; a burning fever was consuming them, and seething theirbrains with delirium. Hundreds died within a few days, and hundreds morewere so debilitated by the terrible strain that they did not linger longafterward. 

The boys who had offered themselves as a sacrifice for the rest were putinto a guard house, and kept over night that Barrett might make a day ofthe amusement of torturing them. After he had laid in a heartybreakfast, and doubtless fortified himself with some of the villainoussorgum whisky, which the Rebels were now reduced to drinking, he setabout his entertainment. 

The devoted four were brought out--one by one--and their hands tiedtogether behind their backs. Then a noose of a slender, strong hemp ropewas slipped over the first one's thumbs and drawn tight, after which therope was thrown over a log projecting from the roof of the guard house, and two or three Rebels hauled upon it until the miserable Yankee waslifted from the ground, and hung suspended by the thumbs, while hisweight seemed tearing his limbs from his shoulder blades. The otherthree were treated in the same manner. 

The agony was simply excruciating. The boys were brave, and had resolvedto stand their punishment without a groan, but this was too much forhuman endurance. Their will was strong, but Nature could not be denied, and they shrieked aloud so pitifully that a young Reserve standing nearfainted. Each one screamed:

"For God's sake, kill me! kill me! Shoot me if--you want to, but let medown from here!" The only effect of this upon Barrett was to light uphis brutal face with a leer of fiendish satisfaction. He said to theguards with a gleeful wink:

"By God, I'll learn these Yanks to be more afeard of me than of the olddevil himself. They'll soon understand that I'm not the man to foolwith. I'm old pizen, I am, when I git started. Jest hear 'em squeal, won't yer?"

Then walking from one prisoner to another, he said:

"D---n yer skins, ye'll dig tunnels, will ye? Ye'll try to git out, andrun through the country stealin' and carryin' off niggers, and makin'more trouble than yer d----d necks are worth. I'll learn ye all aboutthat. If I ketch ye at this sort of work again, d----d ef I don't killye ez soon ez I ketch ye. "

And so on, ad infinitum. How long the boys were kept up there undergoingthis torture can not be said. Perhaps it was an hour or more. To thelocker-on it seemed long hours, to the poor fellows themselves it wasages. When they were let down at last, all fainted, and were carriedaway to the hospital, where they were weeks in recovering from theeffects. Some of them were crippled for life. 

When we came into the prison there were about eleven thousand there. More uniformly wretched creatures I had never before seen. Up to thetime of our departure from Andersonville the constant influx of newprisoners had prevented the misery and wasting away of life from becomingfully realized. Though thousands were continually dying, thousands moreof healthy, clean, well-clothed men were as continually coming in fromthe front, so that a large portion of those inside looked in fairly goodcondition. Put now no new prisoners had come in for months; the moneywhich made such a show about the sutler shops of Andersonville had beenspent; and there was in every face the same look of ghastly emaciation, the same shrunken muscles and feeble limbs, the same lack-luster eyes andhopeless countenances. 

One of the commonest of sights was to see men whose hands and feet weresimply rotting off. The nights were frequently so cold that ice aquarter of an inch thick formed on the water. The naked frames ofstarving men were poorly calculated to withstand this frosty rigor, andthousands had their extremities so badly frozen as to destroy the life inthose parts, and induce a rotting of the tissues by a dry gangrene. The rotted flesh frequently remained in its place for a long time--a loathsome but painless mass, that gradually sloughed off, leaving thesinews that passed through it to stand out like shining, white cords. 

While this was in some respects less terrible than the hospital gangreneat Andersonville, it was more generally diffused, and dreadful to thelast degree. The Rebel Surgeons at Florence did not follow the habit ofthose at Andersonville, and try to check the disease by wholesaleamputation, but simply let it run its course, and thousands finallycarried their putrefied limbs through our lines, when the Confederacybroke up in the Spring, to be treated by our Surgeons. 

I had been in prison but a little while when a voice called out from ahole in the ground, as I was passing:

"S-a-y, Sergeant! Won't you please take these shears and cut my toesoff?"

"What?" said I, in amazement, stopping in front of the dugout. 

"Just take these shears, won't you, and cut my toes off?" answered theinmate, an Indiana infantryman--holding up a pair of dull shears in hishand, and elevating a foot for me to look at. 

I examined the latter carefully. All the flesh of the toes, exceptlittle pads at the ends, had rotted off, leaving the bones as clean as ifscraped. The little tendons still remained, and held the bones to theirplaces, but this seemed to hurt the rest of the feet and annoy the man. 

"You'd better let one of the Rebel doctors see this, " I said, afterfinishing my survey, "before you conclude to have them off. May be theycan be saved. "

"No; d----d if I'm going to have any of them Rebel butchers foolingaround me. I'd die first, and then I wouldn't, " was the reply. "You cando it better than they can. It's just a little snip. Just try it. "

"I don't like to, " I replied. "I might lame you for life, and make youlots of trouble. "

"O, bother! what business is that of yours? They're my toes, and I want'em off. They hurt me so I can't sleep. Come, now, take the shears andcut 'em off. "

I yielded, and taking the shears, snipped one tendon after another, closeto the feet, and in a few seconds had the whole ten toes lying in a heapat the bottom of the dug-out. I picked them up and handed them to theirowner, who gazed at them, complacently, and remarked:

"Well, I'm darned glad they're off. I won't be bothered with corns anymore, I flatter myself. "

CHAPTER LXX. 

HOUSE AND CLOTHES--EFFORTS TO ERECT A SUITABLE RESIDENCE--DIFFICULTIESATTENDING THIS--VARIETIES OF FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE--WAITING FOR DEADMEN'S CLOTHES--CRAVING FOR TOBACCO. 

We were put into the old squads to fill the places of those who hadrecently died, being assigned to these vacancies according to theinitials of our surnames, the same rolls being used that we had signed asparoles. This separated Andrews and me, for the "A's" were taken to fillup the first hundreds of the First Thousand, while the "M's, " to which Ibelonged, went into the next Thousand. 

I was put into the Second Hundred of the Second Thousand, and itsSergeant dying shortly after, I was given his place, and commanded thehundred, drew its rations, made out its rolls, and looked out for itssick during the rest of our stay there. 

Andrews and I got together again, and began fixing up what little wecould to protect ourselves against the weather. Cold as this was wedecided that it was safer to endure it and risk frost-biting every nightthan to build one of the mud-walled and mud-covered holes that so many, lived in. These were much warmer than lying out on the frozen ground, but we believed that they were very unhealthy, and that no one lived longwho inhabited them. 

So we set about repairing our faithful old blanket--now full of greatholes. We watched the dead men to get pieces of cloth from theirgarments to make patches, which we sewed on with yarn raveled from otherfragments of woolen cloth. Some of our company, whom we found in theprison, donated us the three sticks necessary to make tent-poles--wonderful generosity when the preciousness of firewood is remembered. We hoisted our blanket upon these; built a wall of mud bricks at one end, and in it a little fireplace to economize our scanty fuel to the lastdegree, and were once more at home, and much better off than most of ourneighbors. 

One of these, the proprietor of a hole in the ground covered with an archof adobe bricks, had absolutely no bed-clothes except a couple of shortpieces of board--and very little other clothing. He dug a trench in thebottom of what was by courtesy called his tent, sufficiently large tocontain his body below his neck. At nightfall he would crawl into this, put his two bits of board so that they joined over his breast, and thensay: "Now, boys, cover me over;" whereupon his friends would cover him upwith dry sand from the sides of his domicile, in which he would slumberquietly till morning, when he would rise, shake the sand from hisgarments, and declare that he felt as well refreshed as if he had slepton a spring mattress. 

There has been much talk of earth baths of late years in scientific andmedical circles. I have been sorry that our Florence comrade if he stilllives--did not contribute the results of his experience. 

The pinching cold cured me of my repugnance to wearing dead men'sclothes, or rather it made my nakedness so painful that I was glad tocover it as best I could, and I began foraging among the corpses forgarments. For awhile my efforts to set myself up in the mortuarysecond-hand clothing business were not all successful. I found thatdying men with good clothes were as carefully watched over by sets offellows who constituted themselves their residuary legatees as if theywere men of fortune dying in the midst of a circle of expectant nephewsand nieces. Before one was fairly cold his clothes would be appropriatedand divided, and I have seen many sharp fights between contestingclaimants. 

I soon perceived that my best chance was to get up very early in themorning, and do my hunting. The nights were so cold that many could notsleep, and they would walk up and down the streets, trying to keep warmby exercise. Towards morning, becoming exhausted, they would lie down onthe ground almost anywhere, and die. I have frequently seen so many asfifty of these. My first "find" of any importance was a youngPennsylvania Zouave, who was lying dead near the bridge that crossed theCreek. His clothes were all badly worn, except his baggy, dark trousers, which were nearly new. I removed these, scraped out from each of thedozens of great folds in the legs about a half pint of lice, and drew thegarments over my own half-frozen limbs, the first real covering thosemembers had had for four or five months. The pantaloons only came downabout half-way between my knees and feet, but still they were wonderfullycomfortable to what I had been--or rather not been--wearing. I hadpicked up a pair of boot bottoms, which answered me for shoes, and now Ibegan a hunt for socks. This took several morning expeditions, but onone of them I was rewarded with finding a corpse with a good brown one--army make--and a few days later I got another, a good, thick genuine one, knit at home, of blue yarn, by some patient, careful housewife. Almostthe next morning I had the good fortune to find a dead man with a warm, whole, infantry dress-coat, a most serviceable garment. As I still hadfor a shirt the blouse Andrews had given me at Millen, I now consideredmy wardrobe complete, and left the rest of the clothes to those who weremore needy than I. 

Those who used tobacco seemed to suffer more from a deprivation of theweed than from lack of food. There were no sacrifices they would notmake to obtain it, and it was no uncommon thing for boys to trade offhalf their rations for a chew of "navy plug. " As long as one hadanything--especially buttons--to trade, tobacco could be procured fromthe guards, who were plentifully supplied with it. When means of barterwere gone, chewers frequently became so desperate as to beg the guards tothrow them a bit of the precious nicotine. Shortly after our arrival atFlorence, a prisoner on the East Side approached one of the Reserves withthe request:

"Say, Guard, can't you give a fellow a chew of tobacco?"

To which the guard replied:

"Yes; come right across the line there and I'll drop you down a bit. "

The unsuspecting prisoner stepped across the Dead Line, and the guard--aboy of sixteen--raised his gun and killed him. 

At the North Side of the prison, the path down to the Creek lay rightalong side of the Dead Line, which was a mere furrow in the ground. 

At night the guards, in their zeal to kill somebody, were very likely toimagine that any one going along the path for water was across the DeadLine, and fire upon him. It was as bad as going upon the skirmish lineto go for water after nightfall. Yet every night a group of boys wouldbe found standing at the head of the path crying out:

"Fill your buckets for a chew of tobacco. "

That is, they were willing to take all the risk of running that gauntletfor this moderate compensation. 

CHAPTER LXXI. 

DECEMBER--RATIONS OF WOOD AND FOOD GROW LESS DAILY--UNCERTAINTY AS TO THEMORTALITY AT FLORENCE--EVEN THE GOVERNMENT'S STATISTICS ARE VERYDEFICIENT--CARE FOB THE SICK. 

The rations of wood grew smaller as the weather grew colder, until atlast they settled down to a piece about the size of a kitchen rolling-pinper day for each man. This had to serve for all purposes--cooking, aswell as warming. We split the rations up into slips about the size of acarpenter's lead pencil, and used them parsimoniously, never building afire so big that it could not be covered with a half-peck measure. We hovered closely over this--covering it, in fact, with our hands andbodies, so that not a particle of heat was lost. Remembering theIndian's sage remark, "That the white man built a big fire and sat awayoff from it; the Indian made a little fire and got up close to it, " welet nothing in the way of caloric be wasted by distance. The pitch-pineproduced great quantities of soot, which, in cold and rainy days, when wehung over the fires all the time, blackened our faces until we werebeyond the recognition of intimate friends. 

There was the same economy of fuel in cooking. Less than half as much asis contained in a penny bunch of kindling was made to suffice inpreparing our daily meal. If we cooked mush we elevated our little canan inch from the ground upon a chunk of clay, and piled the little sticksaround it so carefully that none should burn without yielding all itsheat to the vessel, and not one more was burned than absolutelynecessary. If we baked bread we spread the dough upon our chessboard, and propped it up before the little fire-place, and used every particleof heat evolved. We had to pinch and starve ourselves thus, while withinfive minutes' walk from the prison-gate stood enough timber to build agreat city. 

The stump Andrews and I had the foresight to save now did us excellentservice. It was pitch pine, very fat with resin, and a little piecesplit off each day added much to our fires and our comfort. 

One morning, upon examining the pockets of an infantryman of my hundredwho had just died, I had the wonderful luck to find a silver quarter. I hurried off to tell Andrews of our unexpected good fortune. By aneffort he succeeded in calming himself to the point of receiving the newswith philosophic coolness, and we went into Committee of the Whole Uponthe State of Our Stomachs, to consider how the money could be spent tothe best advantage. At the south side of the Stockade on the outside ofthe timbers, was a sutler shop, kept by a Rebel, and communicating withthe prison by a hole two or three feet square, cut through the logs. TheDead Line was broken at this point, so as to permit prisoners to come upto the hole to trade. The articles for sale were corn meal and bread, flour and wheat bread, meat, beaus, molasses, honey, sweet potatos, etc. I went down to the place, carefully inspected the stock, pricedeverything there, and studied the relative food value of each. I cameback, reported my observations and conclusions to Andrews, and then staidat the tent while he went on a similar errand. The consideration of thematter was continued during the day and night, and the next morning wedetermined upon investing our twenty-five cents in sweet potatos, as wecould get nearly a half-bushel of them, which was "more fillin' at theprice, " to use the words of Dickens's Fat Boy, than anything else offeredus. We bought the potatos, carried them home in our blanket, buried themin the bottom of our tent, to keep them from being stolen, and restrictedourselves to two per day until we had eaten them all. 

The Rebels did something more towards properly caring for the sick thanat Andersonville. A hospital was established in the northwestern cornerof the Stockade, and separated from the rest of the camp by a line ofpolice, composed of our own men. In this space several large sheds wereerected, of that rude architecture common to the coarser sort ofbuildings in the South. There was not a nail or a bolt used in theirentire construction. Forked posts at the ends and sides supported polesupon which were laid the long "shakes, " or split shingles, forming theroofs, and which were held in place by other poles laid upon them. The sides and ends were enclosed by similar "shakes, " and altogether theyformed quite a fair protection against the weather. Beds of pine leaveswere provided for the sick, and some coverlets, which our SanitaryCommission had been allowed to send through. But nothing was done tobathe or cleanse them, or to exchange their lice-infested garments forothers less full of torture. The long tangled hair and whiskers were notcut, nor indeed were any of the commonest suggestions for the improvementof the condition of the sick put into execution. Men who had laid intheir mud hovels until they had become helpless and hopeless, wereadmitted to the hospital, usually only to die. 

The diseases were different in character from those which swept off theprisoners at Andersonville. There they were mostly of the digestiveorgans; here of the respiratory. The filthy, putrid, speedily fatalgangrene of Andersonville became here a dry, slow wasting away of theparts, which continued for weeks, even months, without being necessarilyfatal. Men's feet and legs, and less frequently their hands and arms, decayed and sloughed off. The parts became so dead that a knife could berun through them without causing a particle of pain. The dead flesh hungon to the bones and tendons long after the nerves and veins had ceased toperform their functions, and sometimes startled one by dropping off in alump, without causing pain or hemorrhage. 

The appearance of these was, of course, frightful, or would have been, had we not become accustomed to them. The spectacle of men with theirfeet and legs a mass of dry ulceration, which had reduced the flesh toputrescent deadness, and left the tendons standing out like cords, wastoo common to excite remark or even attention. Unless the victim was acomrade, no one specially heeded his condition. Lung diseases and lowfevers ravaged the camp, existing all the time in a more or less virulentcondition, according to the changes of the weather, and occasionallyragging in destructive epidemics. I am unable to speak with any degreeof definiteness as to the death rate, since I had ceased to interestmyself about the number dying each day. I had now been a prisoner ayear, and had become so torpid and stupefied, mentally and physically, that I cared comparatively little for anything save the rations of foodand of fuel. The difference of a few spoonfuls of meal, or a largesplinter of wood in the daily issues to me, were of more actualimportance than the increase or decrease of the death rate by a half ascore or more. At Andersonville I frequently took the trouble to countthe number of dead and living, but all curiosity of this kind had nowdied out. 

Nor can I find that anybody else is in possession of much more than myown information on the subject. Inquiry at the War Department haselicited the following letters:

I. 

The prison records of Florence, S. C. , have never come to light, andtherefore the number of prisoners confined there could not be ascertainedfrom the records on file in this office; nor do I think that anystatement purporting to show that number has ever been made. 

In the report to Congress of March 1, 1869, it was shown from records asfollows:

Escaped, fifty-eight; paroled, one; died, two thousand seven hundred andninety-three. Total, two thousand eight hundred and fifty-two. 

Since date of said report there have been added to the records asfollows:

Died, two hundred and twelve; enlisted in Rebel army, three hundred andtwenty-six. Total, five hundred and thirty-eight. 

Making a total disposed of from there, as shown by records on file, ofthree thousand three hundred and ninety. 

This, no doubt, is a small proportion of the number actually confinedthere. 

The hospital register on file contains that part only of the alphabetsubsequent to, and including part of the letter S, but from thisregister, it is shown that the prisoners were arranged in hundreds andthousands, and the hundred and thousand to which he belonged is recordedopposite each man's name on said register. Thus:

"John Jones, 11th thousand, 10th hundred. "

Eleven thousand being the highest number thus recorded, it is fair topresume that not less than that number were confined there on a certaindate, and that more than that number were confined there during the timeit was continued as a prison. 

II

Statement showing the whole number of Federals and Confederates captured, (less the number paroled on the field), the number who died whileprisoners, and the percentage of deaths, 1861-1865

 FEDERALSCaptured .................................................. 187, 818Died, (as shown by prison and hospital records on file).... 30, 674Percentage of deaths ...................................... 16. 375

 CONFEDERATESCaptured .................................................. 227, 570Died ...................................................... 26, 774Percentage of deaths ...................................... 11. 768

In the detailed statement prepared for Congress dated March 1, 1869, thewhole number of deaths given as shown by Prisoner of War records wastwenty-six thousand three hundred and twenty-eight, but since that dateevidence of three thousand six hundred and twenty-eight additional deathshas been obtained from the captured Confederate records, making a totalof twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-six as above shown. Thisis believed to be many thousands less than the actual number of Federalprisoners who died in Confederate prisons, as we have no records fromthose at Montgomery Ala. , Mobile, Ala. , Millen, Ga. , Marietta, Ga. , Atlanta, Ga. , Charleston, S. C. , and others. The records of Florence, S. C. , and Salisbury, N. C. , are very incomplete. It also appears fromConfederate inspection reports of Confederate prisons, that largepercentage of the deaths occurred in prison quarter without the care orknowledge of the Surgeon. For the month of December, 1864 alone, theConfederate "burial report"; Salisbury, N. C. , show that out, of elevenhundred and fifty deaths, two hundred and twenty-three, or twenty percent. , died in prison quarters and are not accounted for in the report ofthe Surgeon, and therefore not taken into consideration in the abovereport, as the only records of said prisons on file (with one exception)are the Hospital records. Calculating the percentage of deaths on thisbasis would give the number of deaths at thirty-seven thousand fourhundred and forty-five and percentage of deaths at 20. 023. 

 [End of the Letters from the War Department. ]

If we assume that the Government's records of Florence as correct, itwill be apparent that one man in every three die there, since, whilethere might have been as high as fifty thousand at one time in theprison, during the last three months of its existence I am quite surethat the number did not exceed seven thousand. This would make themortality much greater than at Andersonville, which it undoubtedly was, since the physical condition of the prisoners confined there had beengreatly depressed by their long confinement, while the bulk c theprisoners at Andersonville were those who had been brought thitherdirectly from the field. I think also that all who experiencedconfinement in the two places are united in pronouncing Florence to be, on the whole, much the worse place and more fatal to life. 

The medicines furnished the sick were quite simple in nature and mainlycomposed of indigenous substances. For diarrhea red pepper anddecoctions of blackberry root and of pine leave were given. For coughsand lung diseases, a decoction of wild cherry bark was administered. Chills and fever were treated with decoctions of dogwood bark, and feverpatients who craved something sour, were given a weak acid drink, made byfermenting a small quantity of meal in a barrel of water. All theseremedies were quite good in their way, and would have benefitted thepatients had they been accompanied by proper shelter, food and clothing. But it was idle to attempt to arrest with blackberry root the diarrhea, or with wild cherry bark the consumption of a man lying in a cold, damp, mud hovel, devoured by vermin, and struggling to maintain life upon lessthan a pint of unsalted corn meal per diem. 

Finding that the doctors issued red pepper for diarrhea, and an imitationof sweet oil made from peanuts, for the gangrenous sores above described, I reported to them an imaginary comrade in my tent, whose symptomsindicated those remedies, and succeeded in drawing a small quantity ofeach, two or three times a week. The red pepper I used to warm up ourbread and mush, and give some different taste to the corn meal, which hadnow become so loathsome to us. The peanut oil served to give a hint ofthe animal food we hungered for. It was greasy, and as we did not haveany meat for three months, even this flimsy substitute was inexpressiblygrateful to palate and stomach. But one morning the Hospital Stewardmade a mistake, and gave me castor oil instead, and the consequences wereunpleasant. 

A more agreeable remembrance is that of two small apples, about the sizeof walnuts, given me by a boy named Henry Clay Montague Porter, of theSixteenth Connecticut. He had relatives living in North Carolina, whosent him a small packs of eatables, out of which, in the fulness of hisgenerous heart he gave me this share--enough to make me always rememberhim with kindness. 

Speaking of eatables reminds me of an incident. Joe Darling, of theFirst Maine, our Chief of Police, had a sister living at Augusta, Ga. , who occasionally came to Florence with basket of food and othernecessaries for her brother. On one of these journeys, while sitting inColonel Iverson's tent, waiting for her brother to be brought out ofprison, she picked out of her basket a nicely browned doughnut and handedit to the guard pacing in front of the tent, with:

"Here, guard, wouldn't you like a genuine Yankee doughnut?"

The guard-a lank, loose-jointed Georgia cracker--who in all his life seenvery little more inviting food than the his hominy and molasses, uponwhich he had been raised, took the cake, turned it over and inspected itcuriously for some time without apparently getting the least idea of whatit was for, and then handed it back to the donor, saying:

"Really, mum, I don't believe I've got any use for it"

CHAPTER LXXII. 

DULL WINTER DAYS--TOO WEAK AND TOO STUPID To AMUSE OURSELVES--ATTEMPTS OFTHE REBELS TO RECRUIT US INTO THEIR ARMY--THE CLASS OF MEN THEY OBTAINED--VENGEANCE ON "THE GALVANIZED"--A SINGULAR EXPERIENCE--RARE GLIMPSESOF FUN--INABILITY OF THE REBELS TO COUNT. 

The Rebels continued their efforts to induce prisoners to enlist in theirarmy, and with much better success than at any previous time. Many menhad become so desperate that they were reckless as to what they did. Home, relatives, friends, happiness--all they had remembered or lookedforward to, all that had nerved them up to endure the present and bravethe future--now seemed separated from them forever by a yawning andimpassable chasm. For many weeks no new prisoners had come in to rousetheir drooping courage with news of the progress of our arms towardsfinal victory, or refresh their remembrances of home, and thegladsomeness of "God's Country. " Before them they saw nothing but weeksof slow and painful progress towards bitter death. The other alternativewas enlistment in the Rebel army. 

Another class went out and joined, with no other intention than to escapeat the first opportunity. They justified their bad faith to the Rebelsby recalling the numberless instances of the Rebels' bad faith to us, and usually closed their arguments in defense of their course with:

"No oath administered by a Rebel can have any binding obligation. Thesemen are outlaws who have not only broken their oaths to the Government, but who have deserted from its service, and turned its arms against it. They are perjurers and traitors, and in addition, the oath theyadminister to us is under compulsion and for that reason is of noaccount. "

Still another class, mostly made up from the old Raider crowd, enlistedfrom natural depravity. They went out more than for anything elsebecause their hearts were prone to evil and they did that which was wrongin preference to what was right. By far the largest portion of those theRebels obtained were of this class, and a more worthless crowd ofsoldiers has not been seen since Falstaff mustered his famous recruits. 

After all, however, the number who deserted their flag was astonishinglysmall, considering all the circumstances. The official report says threehundred and twenty-six, but I imaging this is under the truth, sincequite a number were turned back in after their utter uselessness had beendemonstrated. I suppose that five hundred "galvanized, " as we termed it, but this was very few when the hopelessness of exchange, the despair oflife, and the wretchedness of the condition of the eleven or twelvethousand inside the Stockade is remembered. 

The motives actuating men to desert were not closely analyzed by us, but we held all who did so as despicable scoundrels, too vile to beadequately described in words. It was not safe for a man to announce hisintention of "galvanizing, " for he incurred much danger of being beatenuntil he was physically unable to reach the gate. Those who went over tothe enemy had to use great discretion in letting the Rebel officer, knowso much of their wishes as would secure their being taker outside. Menwere frequently knocked down and dragged away while telling the officersthey wanted to go out. 

On one occasion one hundred or more of the raider crowd who hadgalvanized, were stopped for a few hours in some little Town, on theirway to the front. They lost no time in stealing everything they couldlay their hands upon, and the disgusted Rebel commander ordered them tobe returned to the Stockade. They came in in the evening, all wellrigged out in Rebel uniforms, and carrying blankets. We chose toconsider their good clothes and equipments an aggravation of theiroffense and an insult to ourselves. We had at that time quite a squad ofnegro soldiers inside with us. Among them was a gigantic fellow with afist like a wooden beetle. Some of the white boys resolved to use theseto wreak the camp's displeasure on the Galvanized. The plan was carriedout capitally. The big darky, followed by a crowd of smaller and nimbler"shades, " would approach one of the leaders among them with:

"Is you a Galvanized?"

The surly reply would be, "Yes, you ---- black ----. What the business is that of yours?"

At that instant the bony fist of the darky, descending like apile-driver, would catch the recreant under the ear, and lift him abouta rod. As he fell, the smaller darkies would pounce upon him, and in aninstant despoil him of his blanket and perhaps the larger portion of hiswarm clothing. The operation was repeated with a dozen or more. Thewhole camp enjoyed it as rare fun, and it was the only time that I sawnearly every body at Florence laugh. 

A few prisoners were brought in in December, who had been taken inFoster's attempt to cut the Charleston & Savannah Railroad at Pocataligo. Among them we were astonished to find Charley Hirsch, a member of CompanyI's of our battalion. He had had a strange experience. He wasoriginally a member of a Texas regiment and was captured at ArkansasPost. He then took the oath of allegiance and enlisted with us. Whilewe were at Savannah he approached a guard one day to trade for tobacco. The moment he spoke to the man he recognized him as a former comrade inthe Texas regiment. The latter knew him also, and sang out, "I know you; you're Charley Hirsch, that used to be in my company. "

Charley backed into the crowd as quickly as possible; to elude thefellow's eyes, but the latter called for the Corporal of the Guard, hadhimself relieved, and in a few minutes came in with an officer in searchof the deserter. He found him with little difficulty, and took him out. The luckless Charley was tried by court martial, found, guilty, sentencedto be shot, and while waiting execution was confined in the jail. Beforethe sentence could be carried into effect Sherman came so close to theCity that it was thought best to remove the prisoners. In the confusionCharley managed to make his escape, and at the moment the battle ofPocataligo opened, was lying concealed between the two lines of battle, without knowing, of course, that he was in such a dangerous locality. After the firing opened, he thought it better to lie still than run therisk from the fire of both sides, especially as he momentarily expectedour folks to advance and drive the Rebels away. But the reversehappened; the Johnnies drove our fellows, and, finding Charley in hisplace of concealment, took him for one of Foster's men, and sent him toFlorence, where he staid until we went through to our lines. 

Our days went by as stupidly and eventless as can be conceived. We had grown too spiritless and lethargic to dig tunnels or plan escapes. We had nothing to read, nothing to make or destroy, nothing to work with, nothing to play with, and even no desire to contrive anything foramusement. All the cards in the prison were worn out long ago. Some ofthe boys had made dominos from bones, and Andrews and I still had ourchessmen, but we were too listless to play. The mind, enfeebled by thelong disuse of it except in a few limited channels, was unfitted for evenso much effort as was involved in a game for pastime. 

Nor were there any physical exercises, such as that crowd of young menwould have delighted in under other circumstances. There was no running, boxing, jumping, wrestling, leaping, etc. All were too weak and hungryto make any exertion beyond that absolutely necessary. On cold dayseverybody seemed totally benumbed. The camp would be silent and still. Little groups everywhere hovered for hours, moody and sullen, overdiminutive, flickering fires, made with one poor handful of splinters. When the sun shone, more activity was visible. Boys wandered around, hunted up their friends, and saw what gaps death--always busiest duringthe cold spells--had made in the ranks of their acquaintances. Duringthe warmest part of the day everybody disrobed, and spent an hour or morekilling the lice that had waxed and multiplied to grievous proportionsduring the few days of comparative immunity. 

Besides the whipping of the Galvanized by the darkies, I remember but twoother bits of amusement we had while at Florence. One of these was inhearing the colored soldiers sing patriotic songs, which they did withgreat gusto when the weather became mild. The other was the antics of acircus clown--a member, I believe, of a Connecticut or a New Yorkregiment, who, on the rare occasions when we were feeling not exactlywell so much as simply better than we had been, would give us an hour ortwo of recitations of the drolleries with which he was wont to set thecrowded canvas in a roar. One of his happiest efforts, I remember, was astilted paraphrase of "Old Uncle Ned" a song very popular a quarter of acentury ago, and which ran something like this:

There was an old darky, an' his name was Uncle Ned, But he died long ago, long agoHe had no wool on de top of his head, De place whar de wool ought to grouw. 

 CHORUS Den lay down de shubel an' de hoe, Den hang up de fiddle an' de bow; For dere's no more hard work for poor Uncle Ned He's gone whar de good niggahs go. 

His fingers war long, like de cane in de brake, And his eyes war too dim for to see;He had no teeth to eat de corn cake, So he had to let de corn cake be. 

 CHORUS. 

His legs were so bowed dat he couldn't lie still. An' he had no nails on his toes;

His neck was so crooked dot he couldn't take a pill, So he had to take a pill through his nose. 

 CHORUS. 

One cold frosty morning old Uncle Ned died, An' de tears ran down massa's cheek like rain, For he knew when Uncle Ned was laid in de groun', He would never see poor Uncle Ned again, CHORUS. 

In the hands of this artist the song became--

There was an aged and indigent African whose cognomen was Uncle Edward, But he is deceased since a remote period, a very remote period;He possessed no capillary substance on the summit of his cranium, The place designated by kind Nature for the capillary substance tovegetate. 

CHORUS. Then let the agricultural implements rest recumbent upon the ground;And suspend the musical instruments in peace neon the wall, For there's no more physical energy to be displayed by our Indigent Uncle EdwardHe has departed to that place set apart by a beneficent Providence for the reception of the better class of Africans. 

And so on. These rare flashes of fun only served to throw the underlyingmisery out in greater relief. It was like lightning playing across thesurface of a dreary morass. 

I have before alluded several times to the general inability of Rebels tocount accurately, even in low numbers. One continually met phases ofthis that seemed simply incomprehensible to us, who had taken in themultiplication table almost with our mother's milk, and knew the Rule ofThree as well as a Presbyterian boy does the Shorter Catechism. A cadet--an undergraduate of the South Carolina Military Institute--called our roll at Florence, and though an inborn young aristocrat, whobelieved himself made of finer clay than most mortals, he was not a badfellow at all. He thought South Carolina aristocracy the finest gentry, and the South Carolina Military Institute the greatest institution oflearning in the world; but that is common with all South Carolinians. 

One day he came in so full of some matter of rare importance that webecame somewhat excited as to its nature. Dismissing our hundred afterroll-call, he unburdened his mind:

"Now you fellers are all so d---d peart on mathematics, and such things, that you want to snap me up on every opportunity, but I guess I've gotsomething this time that'll settle you. Its something that a fellow gaveout yesterday, and Colonel Iverson, and all the officers out there havebeen figuring on it ever since, and none have got the right answer, andI'm powerful sure that none of you, smart as you think you are, can doit. "

"Heavens, and earth, let's hear this wonderful problem, " said we all. 

"Well, " said he, "what is the length of a pole standing in a river, one-fifth of which is in the mud, two-thirds in the water, and one-eighthabove the water, while one foot and three inches of the top is brokenoff?"

In a minute a dozen answered, "One hundred and fifty feet. "

The cadet could only look his amazement at the possession of such anamount of learning by a crowd of mudsills, and one of our fellows saidcontemptuously:

"Why, if you South Carolina Institute fellows couldn't answer suchquestions as that they wouldn't allow you in the infant class up North. "

Lieutenant Barrett, our red-headed tormentor, could not, for the life ofhim, count those inside in hundreds and thousands in such a manner as tobe reasonably certain of correctness. As it would have cankered his soulto feel that he was being beaten out of a half-dozen rations by thesuperior cunning of the Yankees, he adopted a plan which he must havelearned at some period of his life when he was a hog or sheep drover. Every Sunday morning all in the camp were driven across the Creek to theEast Side, and then made to file slowly back--one at a time--between twoguards stationed on the little bridge that spanned the Creek. By thismeans, if he was able to count up to one hundred, he could get our numbercorrectly. 

The first time this was done after our arrival he gave us a display ofhis wanton malevolence. We were nearly all assembled on the East Side, and were standing in ranks, at the edge of the swamp, facing the west. Barrett was walking along the opposite edge of the swamp, and, coming toa little gully jumped, it. He was very awkward, and came near fallinginto the mud. We all yelled derisively. He turned toward us in a fury, shook his fist, and shouted curses and imprecations. We yelled stilllouder. He snatched out his revolver, and began firing at our line. Thedistance was considerable--say four or five hundred feet--and the bulletsstruck in the mud in advance of the line. We still yelled. Then hejerked a gun from a guard and fired, but his aim was still bad, and thebullet sang over our heads, striking in the bank above us. He posted ofto get another gun, but his fit subsided before he obtained it. 

CHAPTER LXXIII. 

CHRISTMAS--AND THE WAY THE WAS PASSED--THE DAILY ROUTINE OF RATIONDRAWING--SOME PECULIARITIES OF LIVING AND DYING. 

Christmas, with its swelling flood of happy memories, --memories nowbitter because they marked the high tide whence our fortunes had recededto this despicable state--came, but brought no change to mark its coming. It is true that we had expected no change; we had not looked forward tothe day, and hardly knew when it arrived, so indifferent were we to thelapse of time. 

When reminded that the day was one that in all Christendom was sacred togood cheer and joyful meetings; that wherever the upraised crossproclaimed followers of Him who preached "Peace on Earth and good will tomen, " parents and children, brothers and sisters, long-time friends, andall congenial spirits were gathering around hospitable boards to delightin each other's society, and strengthen the bonds of unity between them, we listened as to a tale told of some foreign land from which we hadparted forever more. 

It seemed years since we had known anything of the kind. The experiencewe had had of it belonged to the dim and irrevocable past. It could notcome to us again, nor we go to it. Squalor, hunger, cold and wastingdisease had become the ordinary conditions of existence, from which therewas little hope that we would ever be exempt. 

Perhaps it was well, to a certain degree, that we felt so. It softenedthe poignancy of our reflections over the difference in the condition ofourselves and our happier comrades who were elsewhere. 

The weather was in harmony with our feelings. The dull, gray, leaden skywas as sharp a contrast with the crisp, bracing sharpness of a NorthernChristmas morning, as our beggarly little ration of saltless corn mealwas to the sumptuous cheer that loaded the dinner-tables of our Northernhomes. 

We turned out languidly in the morning to roll-call, endured silently theraving abuse of the cowardly brute Barrett, hung stupidly over theflickering little fires, until the gates opened to admit the rations. For an hour there was bustle and animation. All stood around and countedeach sack of meal, to get an idea of the rations we were likely toreceive. 

This was a daily custom. The number intended for the day's issue wereall brought in and piled up in the street. Then there was a division ofthe sacks to the thousands, the Sergeant of each being called up in turn, and allowed to pick out and carry away one, until all were taken. Whenwe entered the prison each thousand received, on an average, ten oreleven sacks a day. Every week saw a reduction in the number, until bymidwinter the daily issue to a thousand averaged four sacks. Let us saythat one of these sacks held two bushels, or the four, eight bushels. As there are thirty-two quarts in a bushel, one thousand men received twohundred and fifty-six quarts, or less than a half pint each. 

We thought we had sounded the depths of misery at Andersonville, butFlorence showed us a much lower depth. Bad as was parching under theburning sun whose fiery rays bred miasma and putrefaction, it was stillnot so bad as having one's life chilled out by exposure in nakedness uponthe frozen ground to biting winds and freezing sleet. Wretched as therusty bacon and coarse, maggot-filled bread of Andersonville was, itwould still go much farther towards supporting life than the handful ofsaltless meal at Florence. 

While I believe it possible for any young man, with the forces of lifestrong within him, and healthy in every way, to survive, by taking dueprecautions, such treatment as we received in Andersonville, I cannotunderstand how anybody could live through a month of Florence. That manydid live is only an astonishing illustration of the tenacity of life insome individuals. 

Let the reader imagine--anywhere he likes--a fifteen-acre field, with astream running through the center. Let him imagine this inclosed by aStockade eighteen feet high, made by standing logs on end. Let himconceive of ten thousand feeble men, debilitated by months ofimprisonment, turned inside this inclosure, without a yard of coveringgiven them, and told to make their homes there. One quarter of them--twothousand five hundred--pick up brush, pieces of rail, splits from logs, etc. , sufficient to make huts that will turn the rain tolerably. Thehuts are in no case as good shelter as an ordinarily careful farmerprovides for his swine. Half of the prisoners--five thousand--who cannotdo so well, work the mud up into rude bricks, with which they buildshelters that wash down at every hard rain. The remaining two thousandfive hundred do not do even this, but lie around on the ground, on oldblankets and overcoats, and in day-time prop these up on sticks, asshelter from the rain and wind. Let them be given not to exceed a pintof corn meal a day, and a piece of wood about the size of an ordinarystick for a cooking stove to cook it with. Then let such weather prevailas we ordinarily have in the North in November--freezing cold rains, withfrequent days and nights when the ice forms as thick as a pane of glass. How long does he think men could live through that? He will probably saythat a week, or at most a fortnight, would see the last and strongest ofthese ten thousand lying dead in the frozen mire where he wallowed. Hewill be astonished to learn that probably not more than four or fivethousand of those who underwent this in Florence died there. How manydied after release--in Washington, on the vessels coming to Annapolis, inhospital and camp at Annapolis, or after they reached home, none but theRecording Angel can tell. All that I know is we left a trail of deadbehind us, wherever we moved, so long as I was with the doleful caravan. 

Looking back, after these lapse of years, the most salient characteristicseems to be the ease with which men died. There, was little of theviolence of dissolution so common at Andersonville. The machinery oflife in all of us, was running slowly and feebly; it would simply growstill slower and feebler in some, and then stop without a jar, without asensation to manifest it. Nightly one of two or three comrades sleepingtogether would die. The survivors would not know it until they tried toget him to "spoon" over, when they would find him rigid and motionless. As they could not spare even so little heat as was still contained in hisbody, they would not remove this, but lie up the closer to it untilmorning. Such a thing as a boy making an outcry when he discovered hiscomrade dead, or manifesting any, desire to get away from the corpse, wasunknown. 

I remember one who, as Charles II. Said of himself, was--"an unconscionable long time in dying. " His name was Bickford; hebelonged to the Twenty-First Ohio Volunteer Infantry, lived, I think, near Findlay, O. , and was in my hundred. His partner and he were both ina very bad condition, and I was not surprised, on making my rounds, onemorning, to find them apparently quite dead. I called help, and took hispartner away to the gate. When we picked up Bickford we found he stilllived, and had strength enough to gasp out:

"You fellers had better let me alone. " We laid him back to die, as wesupposed, in an hour or so. 

When the Rebel Surgeon came in on his rounds, I showed him Bickford, lying there with his eyes closed, and limbs motionless. The Surgeonsaid:

"O, that man's dead; why don't you have him taken out?"

I replied: "No, he isn't. Just see. " Stooping, I shook the boysharply, and said:

"Bickford! Bickford!! How do you feel?"

The eyes did not unclose, but the lips opened slowly, and said with apainful effort:

"F-i-r-s-t R-a-t-e!"

This scene was repeated every morning for over a week. Every day theRebel Surgeon would insist that the man should betaken out, and everymorning Bickford would gasp out with troublesome exertion that he felt:

"F-i-r-s-t R-a-t-e!"

It ended one morning by his inability, to make his usual answer, and thenhe was carried out to join the two score others being loaded into thewagon. 

CHAPTER LXXIV. 

NEW YEAR'S DAY--DEATH OF JOHN H. WINDER--HE DIES ON HIS WAY TO A DINNER--SOMETHING AS TO CHARACTER AND CAREER--ONE OF THE WORST MEN THAT EVERLIVED. 

On New Year's Day we were startled by the information that our old-timeenemy--General John H. Winder--was dead. It seemed that the Rebel Sutlerof the Post had prepared in his tent a grand New Year's dinner to whichall the officers were invited. Just as Winder bent his head to enter thetent he fell, and expired shortly after. The boys said it was a clearcase of Death by Visitation of the Devil, and it was always insisted thathis last words were:

"My faith is in Christ; I expect to be saved. Be sure and cut down theprisoners' rations. "

Thus passed away the chief evil genius of the Prisoners-of-War. Americanhistory has no other character approaching his in vileness. I doubt ifthe history of the world can show another man, so insignificant inabilities and position, at whose door can be laid such a terrible load ofhuman misery. There have been many great conquerors and warriors whohave

 Waded through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, but they were great men, with great objects, with grand plans to carryout, whose benefits they thought would be more than an equivalent for thesuffering they caused. The misery they inflicted was not the motive oftheir schemes, but an unpleasant incident, and usually the sufferers weremen of other races and religions, for whom sympathy had been dulled bylong antagonism. 

But Winder was an obscure, dull old man--the commonplace descendant of apseudo-aristocrat whose cowardly incompetence had once cost us the lossof our National Capital. More prudent than his runaway father, he heldhimself aloof from the field; his father had lost reputation and almosthis commission, by coming into contact with the enemy; he would take nosuch foolish risks, and he did not. When false expectations of theultimate triumph of Secession led him to cast his lot with the SouthernConfederacy, he did not solicit a command in the field, but took up hisquarters in Richmond, to become a sort of Informer-General, High-Inquisitor and Chief Eavesdropper for his intimate friend, JeffersonDavis. He pried and spied around into every man's bedroom and familycircle, to discover traces of Union sentiment. The wildest tales maliceand vindictiveness could concoct found welcome reception in his ears. He was only too willing to believe, that he might find excuse forharrying and persecuting. He arrested, insulted, imprisoned, banished, and shot people, until the patience even of the citizens of Richmond gaveway, and pressure was brought upon Jefferson Davis to secure thesuppression of his satellite. For a long while Davis resisted, but atlast yielded, and transferred Winder to the office of Commissary Generalof Prisoners. The delight of the Richmond people was great. One of thepapers expressed it in an article, the key note of which was:

"Thank God that Richmond is at last rid of old Winder. God have mercyupon those to whom he has been sent. "

Remorseless and cruel as his conduct of the office of Provost MarshalGeneral was, it gave little hint of the extent to which he would go inthat of Commissary General of Prisoners. Before, he was restrainedsomewhat by public opinion and the laws of the land. These no longerdeterred him. From the time he assumed command of all the Prisons eastof the Mississippi--some time in the Fall of 1863--until death removedhim, January 1, 1865--certainly not less than twenty-five thousandincarcerated men died in the most horrible manner that the mind canconceive. He cannot be accused of exaggeration, when, surveying thethousands of new graves at Andersonville, he could say with a quietchuckle that he was "doing more to kill off the Yankees than twentyregiments at the front. " No twenty regiments in the Rebel Army eversucceeded in slaying anything like thirteen thousand Yankees in sixmonths, or any other time. His cold blooded cruelty was such as todisgust even the Rebel officers. Colonel D. T. Chandler, of the RebelWar Department, sent on a tour of inspection to Andersonville, reportedback, under date of August 5, 1864:

"My duty requires me respectfully to recommend a change in the officer incommand of the post, Brigadier General John H. Winder, and thesubstitution in his place of some one who unites both energy and goodjudgment with some feelings of humanity and consideration for the welfareand comfort, as far as is consistent with their safe keeping, of the vastnumber of unfortunates placed under his control; some one who, at least, will not advocate deliberately, and in cold blood, the propriety ofleaving them in their present condition until their number issufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrangements sufficefor their accommodation, and who will not consider it a matter ofself-laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of theStockade--a place the horrors of which it is difficult to describe, andwhich is a disgrace to civilization--the condition of which he might, bythe exercise of a little energy and judgment, even with the limitedmeans at his command, have considerably improved. "

In his examination touching this report, Colonel Chandler says:

"I noticed that General Winder seemed very indifferent to the welfare ofthe prisoners, indisposed to do anything, or to do as much as I thoughthe ought to do, to alleviate their sufferings. I remonstrated with himas well as I could, and he used that language which I reported to theDepartment with reference to it--the language stated in the report. WhenI spoke of the great mortality existing among the prisoners, and pointedout to him that the sickly season was coming on, and that it mustnecessarily increase unless something was done for their relief--theswamp, for instance, drained, proper food furnished, and in betterquantity, and other sanitary suggestions which I made to him--he repliedto me that he thought it was better to see half of them die than to takecare of the men. "

It was he who could issue such an order as this, when it was supposedthat General Stoneman was approaching Andersonville:

 HEADQUARTERS MILITARY PRISON, ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. , July 27, 1864. The officers on duty and in charge of the Battery of Florida Artillery atthe time will, upon receiving notice that the enemy has approached withinseven miles of this post, open upon the Stockade with grapeshot, withoutreference to the situation beyond these lines of defense. 

 JOHN H. WINDER, Brigadier General Commanding. 

This man was not only unpunished, but the Government is to-day supportinghis children in luxury by the rent it pays for the use of his property--the well-known Winder building, which is occupied by one of theDepartments at Washington. 

I confess that all my attempts to satisfactorily analyze Winder'scharacter and discover a sufficient motive for his monstrous conduct havebeen futile. Even if we imagine him inspired by a hatred of the peopleof the North that rose to fiendishness, we can not understand him. It seems impossible for the mind of any man to cherish so deep andinsatiable an enmity against his fellow-creatures that it could not bequenched and turned to pity by the sight of even one day's misery atAndersonville or Florence. No one man could possess such a grievoussense of private or national wrongs as to be proof against the dailyspectacle of thousands of his own fellow citizens, inhabitants of thesame country, associates in the same institutions, educated in the sameprinciples, speaking the same language--thousands of his brethren inrace, creed, and all that unite men into great communities, starving, rotting and freezing to death. 

There is many a man who has a hatred so intense that nothing but thedeath of the detested one will satisfy it. A still fewer number thirstfor a more comprehensive retribution; they would slay perhaps ahalf-dozen persons; and there may be such gluttons of revenge as wouldnot be satisfied with the sacrifice of less than a score or two, butsuch would be monsters of whom there have been very few, even infiction. How must they all bow their diminished heads before a manwho fed his animosity fat with tens of thousands of lives. 

But, what also militates greatly against the presumption that eitherrevenge or an abnormal predisposition to cruelty could have animatedWinder, is that the possession of any two such mental traits so stronglymarked would presuppose a corresponding activity of other intellectualfaculties, which was not true of him, as from all I can learn of him hismind was in no respect extraordinary. 

It does not seem possible that he had either the brain to conceive, orthe firmness of purpose to carry out so gigantic and long-enduring acareer of cruelty, because that would imply superhuman qualities in a manwho had previously held his own very poorly in the competition with othermen. 

The probability is that neither Winder nor his direct superiors--HowellCobb and Jefferson Davis--conceived in all its proportions the giganticengine of torture and death they were organizing; nor did they comprehendthe enormity of the crime they were committing. But they were willing todo much wrong to gain their end; and the smaller crimes of to-dayprepared them for greater ones to-morrow, and still greater ones the dayfollowing. Killing ten men a day on Belle Isle in January, by starvationand hardship, led very easily to killing one hundred men a day inAndersonville, in July, August and September. Probably at the beginningof the war they would have felt uneasy at slaying one man per day by suchmeans, but as retribution came not, and as their appetite for slaughtergrew with feeding, and as their sympathy with human misery atrophied fromlong suppression, they ventured upon ever widening ranges ofdestructiveness. Had the war lasted another year, and they lived, fivehundred deaths a day would doubtless have been insufficient to disturbthem. 

Winder doubtless went about his part of the task of slaughter coolly, leisurely, almost perfunctorily. His training in the Regular Army wasagainst the likelihood of his displaying zeal in anything. He institutedcertain measures, and let things take their course. That course was arapid transition from bad to worse, but it was still in the direction ofhis wishes, and, what little of his own energy was infused into it was inthe direction of impetus, -not of controlling or improving the course. To have done things better would have involved soma personal discomfort. He was not likely to incur personal discomfort to mitigate evils thatwere only afflicting someone else. By an effort of one hour a day fortwo weeks he could have had every man in Andersonville and Florence givengood shelter through his own exertions. He was not only too indifferentand too lazy to do this, but he was too malignant; and this neglect toallow--simply allow, remember--the prisoners to protect their lives byproviding their own shelter, gives the key to his whole disposition, and would stamp his memory with infamy, even if there were no othercharges against him. 

CHAPTER LXXV. 

ONE INSTANCE OF A SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE--THE ADVENTURES OF SERGEANT WALTERHARTSOUGH, OF COMPANY K, SIXTEENTH ILLINOIS CAVALRY--HE GETS AWAY FROMTHE REBELS AT THOMASVILLE, AND AFTER A TOILSOME AND DANGEROUS JOURNEYOF SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES, REACHES OUR LINES IN FLORIDA. 

While I was at Savannah I got hold of a primary geography in possessionof one of the prisoners, and securing a fragment of a lead pencil fromone comrade, and a sheet of note paper from another, I made a copy of theSouth Carolina and Georgia sea coast, for the use of Andrews and myselfin attempting to escape. The reader remembers the ill success of all ourefforts in that direction. When we were at Blackshear we still had themap, and intended to make another effort, "as soon as the sign gotright. " One day while we were waiting for this, Walter Hartsough, aSergeant of Company g, of our battalion, came to me and said:

"Mc. , I wish you'd lend me your map a little while. I want to make acopy. "

I handed it over to him, and never saw him more, as almost immediatelyafter we were taken out "on parole" and sent to Florence. I heard fromother comrades of the battalion that he had succeeded in getting past theguard line and into the Woods, which was the last they ever heard of him. Whether starved to death in some swamp, whether torn to pieces by dogs, or killed by the rifles of his pursuers, they knew not. The reader canjudge of my astonishment as well as pleasure, at receiving among thedozens of letters which came to me every day while this account wasappearing in the BLADE, one signed "Walter Hartsough, late of Co. K, Sixteenth Illinois Cavalry. " It was like one returned from the grave, and the next mail took a letter to him, inquiring eagerly of hisadventures after we separated. I take pleasure in presenting the readerwith his reply, which was only intended as a private communication tomyself. The first part of the letter I omit, as it contains only gossipabout our old comrades, which, however interesting to myself, wouldhardly be so to the general reader. 

 GENOA, WAYNE COUNTY, IA. , May 27, 1879. 

Dear Comrade Mc. : ..................... I have been living in this town for ten years, running a general store, under the firm name of Hartsough & Martin, and have been more successfulthan I anticipated. 

I made my escape from Thomasville, Ga. , Dec. 7, 1864, by running theguards, in company with Frank Hommat, of Company M, and a man by the nameof Clipson, of the Twenty-First Illinois Infantry. I had heard theofficers in charge of us say that they intended to march us across to theother road, and take us back to Andersonville. We concluded we wouldtake a heavy risk on our lives rather than return there. By stintingourselves we had got a little meal ahead, which we thought we would bakeup for the journey, but our appetites got the better of us, and we ate itall up before starting. We were camped in the woods then, with noStockade--only a line of guards around us. We thought that by a littlestrategy and boldness we could pass these. We determined to try. Clipson was to go to the right, Hommat in the center, and myself to theleft. We all slipped through, without a shot. Our rendezvous was to bethe center of a small swamp, through which flowed a small stream thatsupplied the prisoners with water. Hommat and I got together soon afterpassing the guard lines, and we began signaling for Clipson. We laiddown by a large log that lay across the stream, and submerged our limbsand part of our bodies in the water, the better to screen ourselves fromobservation. Pretty soon a Johnny came along with a bunch of turniptops, that he was taking up to the camp to trade to the prisoners. As hepassed over the log I could have caught him by the leg, which I intendedto do if he saw us, but he passed along, heedless of those concealedunder his very feet, which saved him a ducking at least, for we wereresolved to drown him if he discovered us. Waiting here a little longerwe left our lurking place and made a circuit of the edge of the swamp, still signaling for Clipson. But we could find nothing of him, and atlast had to give him up. 

We were now between Thomasville and the camp, and as Thomasville was theend of the railroad, the woods were full of Rebels waitingtransportation, and we approached the road carefully, supposing that itwas guarded to keep their own men from going to town. We crawled up tothe road, but seeing no one, started across it. At that moment a guardabout thirty yards to our left, who evidently supposed that we wereRebels, sang out:

"Whar ye gwine to thar boys?"

I answered:

"Jest a-gwine out here a little ways. "

Frank whispered me to run, but I said, "No; wait till he halts us, andthen run. " He walked up to where we had crossed his beat--looked afterus a few minutes, and then, to our great relief, walked back to his post. After much trouble we succeeded in getting through all the troops, andstarted fairly on our way. We tried to shape our course toward Florida. The country was very swampy, the night rainy and dark, no stars were outto guide us, and we made such poor progress that when daylight came wewere only eight miles from our starting place, and close to a roadleading from Thomasville to Monticello. Finding a large turnip patch, we filled our pockets, and then hunted a place to lie concealed in duringthe day. We selected a thicket in the center of a large pasture. Wecrawled into this and laid down. Some negros passed close to us, goingto their work in an adjoining field. They had a bucket of victuals withthem for dinner, which they hung on the fence in such a way that we couldhave easily stolen it without detection. The temptation to hungry menwas very great, but we concluded that it was best and safest to let italone. 

As the negros returned from work in the evening they separated, one oldman passing on the opposite side of the thicket from the rest. We haltedhim and told him that we were Rebs, who had taken a French leave ofThomasville; that we were tired of guarding Yanks, and were going home;and further, that we were hungry, and wanted something to eat. He toldus that he was the boss on the plantation. His master lived inThomasville. He, himself, did not have much to eat, but he would show uswhere to stay, and when the folks went to bed he would bring us somefood. Passing up close to the negro quarters we got over the fence andlay down behind it, to wait for our supper. 

We had been there but a short time when a young negro came out, andpassing close by us, went into a fence corner a few panels distant and, kneeling down, began praying aloud, and very, earnestly, and strangerstill, the burden of his supplication was for the success of our armies. I thought it the best prayer I ever listened to. Finishing his devotionshe returned to the house, and shortly after the old man came with a goodsupper of corn bread, molasses and milk. He said that he had no meat, and that he had done the best he could for us. After we had eaten, hesaid that as the young people had gone to bed, we had better come intohis cabin and rest awhile, which we did. 

Hommat had a full suit of Rebel clothes, and I had stolen sacks enough atAndersonville, when they were issuing rations, to make me a shirt andpantaloons, which a sailor fabricated for me. I wore these over what wasleft of my blue clothes. The old negro lady treated us very coolly. Ina few minutes a young negro came in, whom the old gentleman introduced ashis son, and whom I immediately recognized as our friend of the prayerfulproclivities. He said that he had been a body servant to his youngmaster, who was an officer in the Rebel army. 

"Golly!" says he, "if you 'uns had stood a little longer at Stone River, our men would have run. "

I turned to him sharply with the question of what he meant by calling us"You 'uns, " and asked him if he believed we were Yankees. He surveyed uscarefully for a few seconds, and then said:

"Yes; I bleav you is Yankees. "

He paused a second, and added:

"Yes, I know you is. "

I asked him how he knew it, and he said that we neither looked nor talkedlike their men. I then acknowledged that we were Yankee prisoners, trying to make our escape to our lines. This announcement put new lifeinto the old lady, and, after satisfying herself that we were reallyYankees, she got up from her seat, shook hands with us, and declared wemust have a better supper than we had had. She set immediately aboutpreparing it for us. Taking up a plank in the floor, she pulled out anice flitch of bacon, from which she cut as much as we could eat, andgave us some to carry with us. She got up a real substantial supper, to which we did full justice, in spite of the meal we had already eaten. 

They gave us a quantity of victuals to take with us, and instructed us aswell as possible as to our road. They warned us to keep away from theyoung negros, but trust the old ones implicitly. Thanking them over andover for their exceeding kindness, we bade them good-by, and startedagain on our journey. Our supplies lasted two days, during which time wemade good progress, keeping away from the roads, and flanking the towns, which were few and insignificant. We occasionally came across negros, of whom we cautiously inquired as to the route and towns, and by theassistance of our map and the stars, got along very well indeed, until wecame to the Suwanee River. We had intended to cross this at Columbus orAlligator. When within six miles of the river we stopped at some negrohuts to get some food. The lady who owned the negros was a widow, whowas born and raised in Massachusetts. Her husband had died before thewar began. An old negro woman told her mistress that we were at thequarters, and she sent for us to come to the house. She was a verynice-looking lady, about thirty-five years of age, and treated us withgreat kindness. Hommat being barefooted, she pulled off her own shoesand stockings and gave them to him, saying that she would go to Town thenext day and get herself another pair. She told us not to try to crossthe river near Columbus, as their troops had been deserting in greatnumbers, and the river was closely picketed to catch the runaways. Shegave us directions how to go so as to cross the river about fifty milesbelow Columbus. We struck the river again the next night, and I wantedto swim it, but Hommat was afraid of alligators, and I could not inducehim to venture into the water. 

We traveled down the river until we came to Moseley's Ferry, where westole an old boat about a third full of water, and paddled across. Therewas quite a little town at that place, but we walked right down the mainstreet without meeting any one. Six miles from the river we saw an oldnegro woman roasting sweet potatos in the back yard of a house. We werevery hungry, and thought we would risk something to get food. Hommatwent around near her, and asked her for something to eat. She told himto go and ask the white folks. This was the answer she made to everyquestion. He wound up by asking her how far it was to Mossley's Ferry, saying that he wanted to go there, and get something to eat. She at lastran into the house, and we ran away as fast as we could. We had gone buta short distance when we heard a horn, and soon-the-cursed hounds beganbellowing. We did our best running, but the hounds circled around thehouse a few times and then took our trail. For a little while it seemedall up with us, as the sound of the baying came closer and closer. Butour inquiry about the distance to Moseley's Ferry seems to have saved us. They soon called the hounds in, and started them on the track we hadcome, instead of that upon which we were going. The baying shortly diedaway in the distance. We did not waste any time congratulating ourselvesover our marvelous escape, but paced on as fast as we could for abouteight miles farther. On the way we passed over the battle ground ofOolustee, or Ocean Pond. 

Coming near to Lake City we fell in with some negros who had been broughtfrom Maryland. We stopped over one day with them, to rest, and two ofthem concluded to go with us. We were furnished with a lot of cookedprovisions, and starting one night made forty-two miles before morning. We kept the negros in advance. I told Hommat that it was a poor commandthat could not afford an advance guard. After traveling two nights withthe negros, we came near Baldwin. Here I was very much afraid ofrecapture, and I did not want the negros with us, if we were, lest weshould be shot for slave-stealing. About daylight of the second morningwe gave them the slip. 

We had to skirt Baldwin closely, to head the St. Mary's River, or crossit where that was easiest. After crossing the river we came to a verylarge swamp, in the edge of which we lay all day. Before nightfall westarted to go through it, as there was no fear of detection in theseswamps. We got through before it was very dark, and as we emerged fromit we discovered a dense cloud of smoke to our right and quite close. We decided this was a camp, and while we were talking the band began toplay. This made us think that probably our forces had come out fromFernandina, and taken the place. I proposed to Hommat that we go forwardand reconnoiter. He refused, and leaving him alone, I started forward. I had gone but a short distance when a soldier came out from the campwith a bucket. He began singing, and the song he sang convinced me thathe was a Rebel. Rejoining Hommat, we held a consultation and decided tostay where we were until it became darker, before trying to get out. It was the night of the 22d of December, and very cold for that country. The camp guard had small fires built, which we could see quite plainly. After starting we saw that the pickets also had fires, and that we werebetween the two lines. This discovery saved us from capture, and keepingabout an equal distance between the two, we undertook to work our wayout. 

We first crossed a line of breastworks, then in succession the FernandinaRailroad, the Jacksonville Railroad, and pike, moving all the time nearlyparallel with the picket line. Here we had to halt. Hommat wassuffering greatly with his feet. The shoes that had been given him bythe widow lady were worn out, and his feet were much torn and cut by theterribly rough road we had traveled through swamps, etc. We sat down ona log, and I, pulling off the remains of my army shirt, tore it intopieces, and Hommat wrapped his feet up in them. A part I reserved andtore into strips, to tie up the rents in our pantaloons. Going throughthe swamps and briers had torn them into tatters, from waistband to hem, leaving our skins bare to be served in the same way. 

We started again, moving slowly and bearing towards the picket fires, which we could see for a distance on our left. After traveling somelittle time the lights on our left ended, which puzzled us for a while, until we came to a fearful big swamp, that explained it all, as this, considered impassable, protected the right of the camp. We had an awfultime in getting through. In many places we had to lie down and crawllong distances through the paths made in the brakes by hogs and otheranimals. As we at length came out, Hommat turned to me and whisperedthat in the morning we would have some Lincoln coffee. He seemed tothink this must certainly end our troubles. 

We were now between the Jacksonville Railroad and the St. John's River. We kept about four miles from the railroad, for fear of running into theRebel outposts. We had traveled but a few miles when Hommat said hecould go no farther, as his feet and legs were so swelled and numb thathe could not tell when he set them upon the ground. I had some matchesthat a negro had given me, and gathering together a few pine knots wemade a fire--the first that we had lighted on the trip--and laid downwith it between us. We had slept but a few minutes when I awoke andfound Hommat's clothes on fire. Rousing him we put out the flames beforehe was badly burned, but the thing had excited him so as to give him newlife, and be proposed to start on again. 

By sunrise we were within eight miles of our lines, and concluding thatit would be safe to travel in the daytime, we went ahead, walking alongthe railroad. The excitement being over, Hommat began to move veryslowly again. His feet and legs were so swollen that he could scarcelywalk, and it took us a long while to pass over those eight miles. 

At last we came in sight of our pickets. They were negros. They haltedus, and Hommat went forward to speak to them. They called for theOfficer of the Guard, who came, passed us inside, and shook handscordially with us. His first inquiry was if we knew Charley Marseilles, whom you remember ran that little bakery at Andersonville. 

We were treated very kindly at Jacksonville. General Scammon was incommand of the post, and had only been released but a short time fromprison, so he knew how it was himself. I never expect to enjoy as happya moment on earth as I did when I again got under the protection of theold flag. Hommat went to the hospital a few days, and was then sentaround to New York by sea. 

Oh, it was a fearful trip through those Florida swamps. We would veryoften have to try a swamp in three or four different places before wecould get through. Some nights we could not travel on account of itsbeing cloudy and raining. There is not money enough in the United Statesto induce me to undertake the trip again under the same circumstances. Our friend Clipson, that made his escape when we did, got very nearlythrough to our lines, but was taken sick, and had to give himself up. He was taken back to Andersonville and kept until the next Spring, whenhe came through all right. There were sixty-one of Company K captured atJonesville, and I think there was only seventeen lived through thosehorrible prisons. 

You have given the best description of prison life that I have ever seenwritten. The only trouble is that it cannot be portrayed so that personscan realize the suffering and abuse that our soldiers endured in thoseprison hells. Your statements are all correct in regard to the treatmentthat we received, and all those scenes you have depicted are as vivid inmy mind today as if they had only occurred yesterday. Please let me hearfrom you again. Wishing you success in all your undertakings, I remainyour friend, WALTER, HARTSOUGH, Late of K Company, Sixteenth Illinois Volunteer of Infantry. 

CHAPTER LXXVI. 

THE PECULIAR TYPE OF INSANITY PREVALENT AT FLORENCE--BARRETT'S WANTONNESSOF CRUELTY--WE LEARN OF SHERMAN'S ADVANCE INTO SOUTH CAROLINA--THE REBELSBEGIN MOVING THE PRISONERS AWAY--ANDREWS AND I CHANGE OUR TACTICS, ANDSTAY BEHIND--ARRIVAL OF FIVE PRISONERS FROM SHERMAN'S COMMAND--THEIRUNBOUNDED CONFIDENCE IN SHERMAN'S SUCCESS, AND ITS BENEFICIAL EFFECT UPONUS. 

One terrible phase of existence at Florence was the vast increase ofinsanity. We had many insane men at Andersonville, but the type of thederangement was different, partaking more of what the doctors termmelancholia. Prisoners coming in from the front were struck aghast bythe horrors they saw everywhere. Men dying of painful and repulsivediseases lined every step of whatever path they trod; the rations giventhem were repugnant to taste and stomach; shelter from the fiery sunthere was none, and scarcely room enough for them to lie down upon. Under these discouraging circumstances, home-loving, kindly-hearted men, especially those who had passed out of the first flush of youth, and hadleft wife and children behind when they entered the service, werespeedily overcome with despair of surviving until released; theirhopelessness fed on the same germs which gave it birth, until it becamesenseless, vacant-eyed, unreasoning, incurable melancholy, when thevictim would lie for hours, without speaking a word, except to babble ofhome, or would wander aimlessly about the camp--frequently starknaked--until he died or was shot for coming too near the Dead Line. Soldiers must not suppose that this was the same class of weaklings whousually pine themselves into the Hospital within three months aftertheir regiment enters the field. They were as a rule, made up ofseasoned soldiery, who had become inured to the dangers and hardships ofactive service, and were not likely to sink down under any ordinarytrials. 

The insane of Florence were of a different class; they were the boys whohad laughed at such a yielding to adversity in Andersonville, and felt alofty pity for the misfortunes of those who succumbed so. But now thelong strain of hardship, privation and exposure had done for them whatdiscouragement had done for those of less fortitude in Andersonville. The faculties shrank under disuse and misfortune, until they forgot theirregiments, companies, places and date of capture, and finally, even theirnames. I should think that by the middle of January, at least one inevery ten had sunk to this imbecile condition. It was not insanity somuch as mental atrophy--not so much aberration of the mind, as aparalysis of mental action. The sufferers became apathetic idiots, withno desire or wish to do or be anything. If they walked around at allthey had to be watched closely, to prevent their straying over the DeadLine, and giving the young brats of guards the coveted opportunity ofkilling them. Very many of such were killed, and one of my Midwintermemories of Florence was that of seeing one of these unfortunateimbeciles wandering witlessly up to the Dead Line from the Swamp, whilethe guard--a boy of seventeen--stood with gun in hand, in the attitude ofa man expecting a covey to be flushed, waiting for the poor devil to comeso near the Dead Line as to afford an excuse for killing him. Two saneprisoners, comprehending the situation, rushed up to the lunatic, at therisk of their own lives, caught him by the arms, and drew him back tosafety. 

The brutal Barrett seemed to delight in maltreating these dementedunfortunates. He either could not be made to understand their condition, or willfully disregarded it, for it was one of the commonest sights tosee him knock down, beat, kick or otherwise abuse them for not instantlyobeying orders which their dazed senses could not comprehend, or theirfeeble limbs execute, even if comprehended. 

In my life I have seen many wantonly cruel men. I have known numbers ofmates of Mississippi river steamers--a class which seems carefullyselected from ruffians most proficient in profanity, obscenity andswift-handed violence; I have seen negro-drivers in the slave marts ofSt. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, and overseers on the plantations ofMississippi and Louisiana; as a police reporter in one of the largestcities in America, I have come in contact with thousands of thebrutalized scoundrels--the thugs of the brothel, bar-room and alley--whoform the dangerous classes of a metropolis. I knew Captain Wirz. But inall this exceptionally extensive and varied experience, I never met a manwho seemed to love cruelty for its own sake as well as LieutenantBarrett. He took such pleasure in inflicting pain as those Indians whoslice off their prisoners' eyelids, ears, noses and hands, before burningthem at the stake. 

That a thing hurt some one else was always ample reason for his doing it. The starving, freezing prisoners used to collect in considerable numbersbefore the gate, and stand there for hours gazing vacantly at it. Therewas no special object in doing this, only that it was a central point, the rations came in there, and occasionally an officer would enter, andit was the only place where anything was likely to occur to vary thedreary monotony of the day, and the boys went there because there wasnothing else to offer any occupation to their minds. It became afavorite practical joke of Barrett's to slip up to the gate with anarmful of clubs, and suddenly opening the wicket, fling them one afteranother, into the crowd, with all the force he possessed. Many wereknocked down, and many received hurts which resulted in fatal gangrene. If he had left the clubs lying where thrown, there would have been somecompensation for his meanness, but he always came in and carefullygathered up such as he could get, as ammunition for another time. 

I have heard men speak of receiving justice--even favors from Wirz. I never heard any one saying that much of Barrett. Like Winder, if hehad a redeeming quality it was carefully obscured from the view of allthat I ever met who knew him. 

Where the fellow came from, what State was entitled to the discredit ofproducing and raising him, what he was before the War, what became of himafter he left us, are matters of which I never heard even a rumor, excepta very vague one that he had been killed by our cavalry, some returnedprisoner having recognized and shot him. 

Colonel Iverson, of the Fifth Georgia, was the Post Commander. He was aman of some education, but had a violent, ungovernable temper, duringfits of which he did very brutal things. At other times he would show adisposition towards fairness and justice. The worst point in myindictment against him is that he suffered Barrett to do as he did. 

Let the reader understand that I have no personal reasons for my opinionof these men. They never did anything to me, save what they did to allof my companions. I held myself aloof from them, and shunned intercourseso effectually that during my whole imprisonment I did not speak as manywords to Rebel officers as are in this and the above paragraphs, and mostof those were spoken to the Surgeon who visited my hundred. I do notusually seek conversation with people I do not like, and certainly didnot with persons for whom I had so little love as I had for Turner, Ross, Winder, Wirz, Davis, Iverson, Barrett, et al. Possibly they felt badlyover my distance and reserve, but I must confess that they never showedit very palpably. 

As January dragged slowly away into February, rumors of the astonishingsuccess of Sherman began to be so definite and well authenticated as toinduce belief. We knew that the Western Chieftain had marched almostunresisted through Georgia, and captured Savannah with comparativelylittle difficulty. We did not understand it, nor did the Rebels aroundus, for neither of us comprehended the Confederacy's near approach todissolution, and we could not explain why a desperate attempt was notmade somewhere to arrest the onward sweep of the conquering armies of theWest. It seemed that if there was any vitality left in Rebeldom it woulddeal a blow that would at least cause the presumptuous invader to pause. As we knew nothing of the battles of Franklin and Nashville, we wereignorant of the destruction of Hood's army, and were at a loss to accountfor its failure to contest Sherman's progress. The last we had heard ofHood, he had been flanked out of Atlanta, but we did not understand thatthe strength or morale of his force had been seriously reduced inconsequence. 

Soon it drifted in to us that Sherman had cut loose from Savannah, asfrom Atlanta, and entered South Carolina, to repeat there the marchthrough her sister State. Our sources of information now were confinedto the gossip which our men--working outside on parole, --could overhearfrom the Rebels, and communicate to us as occasion served. Theseoccasions were not frequent, as the men outside were not allowed to comein except rarely, or stay long then. Still we managed to knowreasonably, soon that Sherman was sweeping resistlessly across the State, with Hardee, Dick Taylor, Beauregard, and others, vainly trying to makehead against him. It seemed impossible to us that they should not stophim soon, for if each of all these leaders had any command worthy thename the aggregate must make an army that, standing on the defensive, would give Sherman a great deal of trouble. That he would be able topenetrate into the State as far as we were never entered into our minds. 

By and by we were astonished at the number of the trains that we couldhear passing north on the Charleston & Cheraw Railroad. Day and nightfor two weeks there did not seem to be more than half an hour's intervalat any time between the rumble and whistles of the trains as they passedFlorence Junction, and sped away towards Cheraw, thirty-five miles northof us. We at length discovered that Sherman had reached Branchville, andwas singing around toward Columbia, and other important points to thenorth; that Charleston was being evacuated, and its garrison, munitionsand stores were being removed to Cheraw, which the Rebel Generalsintended to make their new base. As this news was so well confirmed asto leave no doubt of it, it began to wake up and encourage all the morehopeful of us. We thought we could see some premonitions of the gloriousend, and that we were getting vicarious satisfaction at the hands of ourfriends under the command of Uncle Billy. 

One morning orders came for one thousand men to get ready to move. Andrews and I held a council of war on the situation, the question beforethe house being whether we would go with that crowd, or stay behind. Theconclusion we came to was thus stated by Andrews:

"Now, Mc. , we've flanked ahead every time, and see how we've come out. We flanked into the first squad that left Richmond, and we wereconsequently in the first that got into Andersonville. May be if we'dstaid back we'd got into that squad that was exchanged. We were in thefirst squad that left Andersonville. We were the first to leave Savannahand enter Millen. May be if we'd staid back, we'd got exchanged with theten thousand sick. We were the first to leave Millen and the first toreach Blackshear. We were again the first to leave Blackshear. Perhapsthose fellows we left behind then are exchanged. Now, as we've playedahead every time, with such infernal luck, let's play backward this time, and try what that brings us. "

"But, Lale, " (Andrews's nickname--his proper name being Bezaleel), saidI, "we made something by going ahead every time--that is, if we were notgoing to be exchanged. By getting into those places first we picked outthe best spots to stay, and got tent-building stuff that those who cameafter us could not. And certainly we can never again get into as bad aplace as this is. The chances are that if this does not mean exchange, it means transfer to a better prison. "

But we concluded, as I said above, to reverse our usual order ofprocedure and flank back, in hopes that something would favor our escapeto Sherman. Accordingly, we let the first squad go off without us, andthe next, and the next, and so on, till there were only eleven hundred--mostly those sick in the Hospital--remaining behind. Those who wentaway--we afterwards learned, were run down on the cars to Wilmington, andafterwards up to Goldsboro, N. C. 

For a week or more we eleven hundred tenanted the Stockade, and byburning up the tents of those who had gone had the only decent, comfortable fires we had while in Florence. In hunting around throughthe tents for fuel we found many bodies of those who had died as theircomrades were leaving. As the larger portion of us could barely walk, the Rebels paroled us to remain inside of the Stockade or within a fewhundred yards of the front of it, and took the guards off. While thesewere marching down, a dozen or more of us, exulting in even so muchfreedom as we had obtained, climbed on the Hospital shed to see what theoutlook was, and perched ourselves on the ridgepole. Lieutenant Barrettcame along, at a distance of two hundred yards, with a squad of guards. Observing us, he halted his men, faced them toward us, and they leveledtheir guns as if to fire. He expected to see us tumble down in ludicrousalarm, to avoid the bullets. But we hated him and them so bad, that wecould not give them the poor satisfaction of scaring us. Only one of ourparty attempted to slide down, but the moment we swore at him he cameback and took his seat with folded arms alongside of us. Barrett gavethe order to fire, and the bullets shrieked aver our heads, fortunatelynot hitting anybody. We responded with yells of derision, and the worstabuse we could think of. 

Coming down after awhile, I walked to the now open gate, and loopedthrough it over the barren fields to the dense woods a mile away, and awild desire to run off took possession of me. It seemed as if I couldnot resist it. The woods appeared full of enticing shapes, beckoning meto come to them, and the winds whispered in my ears:

"Run! Run! Run!"

But the words of my parole were still fresh in my mind, and I stilled myfrenzy to escape by turning back into the Stockade and looking away fromthe tempting view. 

Once five new prisoners, the first we had seen in a long time, werebrought in from Sherman's army. They were plump, well-conditioned, well-dressed, healthy, devil-may-care young fellows, whose confidence inthemselves and in Sherman was simply limitless, and their contempt forall Rebels and especially those who terrorized over us, enormous. 

"Come up here to headquarters, " said one of the Rebel officers to them asthey stood talking to us; "and we'll parole you. "

"O go to h--- with your parole, " said the spokesman of the crowd, withnonchalant contempt; "we don't want none of your paroles. Old Billy'llparole us before Saturday. "

To us they said:

"Now, you boys want to cheer right up; keep a stiff upper lip. Thisthing's workin' all right. Their old Confederacy's goin' to pieces likea house afire. Sherman's promenadin' through it just as it suits him, and he's liable to pay a visit at any hour. We're expectin' him all thetime, because it was generally understood all through the Army that wewere to take the prison pen here in on our way. "

I mentioned my distrust of the concentration of Rebels at Cheraw, andtheir faces took on a look of supreme disdain. 

"Now, don't let that worry you a minute, " said the confident spokesman. "All the Rebels between here and Lee's Army can't prevent Sherman fromgoing just where he pleases. Why, we've quit fightin' 'em except withthe Bummers advance. We haven't had to go into regular line of battleagainst them for I don't know how long. Sherman would like anythingbetter than to have 'em make a stand somewhere so that he could get agood fair whack at 'em. "

No one can imagine the effect of all this upon us. It was better than acarload of medicines and a train load of provisions would have been. From the depths of despondency we sprang at once to tip-toe on themountain-tops of expectation. We did little day and night but listen forthe sound of Sherman's guns and discuss what we would do when he came. We planned schemes of terrible vengeance on Barrett and Iverson, butthese worthies had mysteriously disappeared--whither no one knew. Therewas hardly an hour of any night passed without some one of us fancyingthat he heard the welcome sound of distant firing. As everybody knows, by listening intently at night, one can hear just exactly what he isintent upon hearing, and so was with us. In the middle of the night boyslistening awake with strained ears, would say:

"Now, if ever I heard musketry firing in my life, that's a heavy skirmishline at work, and sharply too, and not more than three miles away, neither. "

Then another would say:

"I don't want to ever get out of here if that don't sound just as theskirmishing at Chancellorsville did the first day to us. We were lyingdown about four miles off, when it began pattering just as that is doingnow. "

And so on. 

One night about nine or ten, there came two short, sharp peals ofthunder, that sounded precisely like the reports of rifled field pieces. We sprang up in a frenzy of excitement, and shouted as if our throatswould split. But the next peal went off in the usual rumble, and ourexcitement had to subside. 

CHAPTER LXXVII. 

FRUITLESS WAITING FOR SHERMAN--WE LEAVE FLORENCE--INTELLIGENCE OF THEFALL OF WILMINGTON COMMUNICATED TO US BY A SLAVE--THE TURPENTINE REGIONOF NORTH CAROLINA--WE COME UPON A REBEL LINE OF BATTLE--YANKEES AT BOTHENDS OF THE ROAD. 

Things had gone on in the way described in the previous chapter untilpast the middle of February. For more than a week every waking hour wasspent in anxious expectancy of Sherman--listening for the far-off rattleof his guns--straining our ears to catch the sullen boom of hisartillery--scanning the distant woods to see the Rebels falling back inhopeless confusion before the pursuit of his dashing advance. Though webecame as impatient as those ancient sentinels who for ten long yearsstood upon the Grecian hills to catch the first glimpse of the flames ofburning Troy, Sherman came not. We afterwards learned that twoexpeditions were sent down towards us from Cheraw, but they met withunexpected resistance, and were turned back. 

It was now plain to us that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall, and we were only troubled by occasional misgivings that we might in someway be caught and crushed under the toppling ruins. It did not seempossible that with the cruel tenacity with which the Rebels had clung tous they would be willing to let us go free at last, but would be temptedin the rage of their final defeat to commit some unparalleled atrocityupon us. 

One day all of us who were able to walk were made to fall in and marchover to the railroad, where we were loaded into boxcars. The sick--except those who were manifestly dying--were loaded into wagons andhauled over. The dying were left to their fate, without any companionsor nurses. 

The train started off in a northeasterly direction, and as we wentthrough Florence the skies were crimson with great fires, burning in alldirections. We were told these were cotton and military stores beingdestroyed in anticipation of a visit from, a part of Sherman's forces. 

When morning came we were still running in the same direction that westarted. In the confusion of loading us upon the cars the previousevening, I had been allowed to approach too near a Rebel officer's stockof rations, and the result was his being the loser and myself the gainerof a canteen filled with fairly good molasses. Andrews and I had somecorn bread, and we, breakfasted sumptuously upon it and the molasses, which was certainly none-the-less sweet from having been stolen. 

Our meal over, we began reconnoitering, as much for employment asanything else. We were in the front end of a box car. With a saw madeon the back of a case-knife we cut a hole through the boards big enoughto permit us to pass out, and perhaps escape. We found that we were onthe foremost box car of the train--the next vehicle to us being apassenger coach, in which were the Rebel officers. On the rear platformof this car was seated one of their servants--a trusty old slave, welldressed, for a negro, and as respectful as his class usually was. Said Ito him:

"Well, uncle, where are they taking us?"

He replied:

"Well, sah, I couldn't rightly say. "

"But you could guess, if you tried, couldn't you?"

"Yes sah. "

He gave a quick look around to see if the door behind him was so securelyshut that he could not be overheard by the Rebels inside the car, hisdull, stolid face lighted up as a negro's always does in the excitementof doing something cunning, and he said in a loud whisper:

"Dey's a-gwine to take you to Wilmington--ef dey kin get you dar!"

"Can get us there!" said I in astonishment. "Is there anything toprevent them taking us there?"

The dark face filled with inexpressible meaning. I asked:

"It isn't possible that there are any Yankees down there to interfere, is it?"

The great eyes flamed up with intelligence to tell me that I guessedaright; again he glanced nervously around to assure himself that no onewas eavesdropping, and then he said in a whisper, just loud enough to beheard above the noise of the moving train:

"De Yankees took Wilmington yesterday mawning. "

The news startled me, but it was true, our troops having driven out theRebel troops, and entered Wilmington, on the preceding day--the 22d ofFebruary, 1865, as I learned afterwards. How this negro came to knowmore of what was going on than his masters puzzled me much. That he didknow more was beyond question, since if the Rebels in whose charge wewere had known of Wilmington's fall, they would not have gone to thetrouble of loading us upon the cars and hauling us one, hundred miles inthe direction of a City which had come into the hands of our men. 

It has been asserted by many writers that the negros had some occultmeans of diffusing important news among the mass of their people, probably by relays of swift runners who traveled at night, goingtwenty-five or thirty miles and back before morning. Very astonishingstories are told of things communicated in this way across the length orbreadth of the Confederacy. It is said that our officers in theblockading fleet in the Gulf heard from the negros in advance of thepublication in the Rebel papers of the issuance of the Proclamation ofEmancipation, and of several of our most important Victories. Theincident given above prepares me to believe all that has been told ofthe perfection to which the negros had brought their "grapevinetelegraph, " as it was jocularly termed. 

The Rebels believed something of it, too. In spite of their rigorouspatrol, an institution dating long before the war, and the severepunishments visited upon negros found off their master's premises withouta pass, none of them entertained a doubt that the young negro men were inthe habit of making long, mysterious journeys at night, which had othermotives than love-making or chicken-stealing. Occasionally a young manwould get caught fifty or seventy-five miles from his "quarters, " whileon some errand of his own, the nature of which no punishment could makehim divulge. His master would be satisfied that he did not intendrunning away, because he was likely going in the wrong direction, butbeyond this nothing could be ascertained. It was a common belief amongoverseers, when they saw an active, healthy young "buck" sleepy andlanguid about his work, that he had spent the night on one of theseexcursions. 

The country we were running through--if such straining, toilsome progressas our engine was making could be called running--was a rich turpentinedistrict. We passed by forests where all the trees were marked with longscores through the bark, and extended up to a hight of twenty feet ormore. Into these, the turpentine and rosin, running down, were caught, and conveyed by negros to stills near by, where it was prepared formarket. The stills were as rude as the mills we had seen in EasternTennessee and Kentucky, and were as liable to fiery destruction as apowder-house. Every few miles a wide space of ground, burned clean oftrees and underbrush, and yet marked by a portion of the stones which hadformed the furnace, showed where a turpentine still, managed by carelessand ignorant blacks, had been licked up by the breath of flame. Theynever seemed to re-build on these spots--whether from superstition orother reasons, I know not. 

Occasionally we came to great piles of barrels of turpentine, rosin andtar, some of which had laid there since the blockade had cut offcommunication with the outer world. Many of the barrels of rosin hadburst, and their contents melted in the heat of the sun, had run over theground like streams of lava, covering it to a depth of many inches. At the enormous price rosin, tar and turpentine were commanding in themarkets of the world, each of these piles represented a superb fortune. Any one of them, if lying upon the docks of New York, would have yieldedenough to make every one of us upon the train comfortable for life. But a few months after the blockade was raised, and they sank toone-thirtieth of their present value. 

These terebinthine stores were the property of the plantation lords ofthe lowlands of North Carolina, who correspond to the pinchbeck barons ofthe rice districts of South Carolina. As there, the whites and negros wesaw were of the lowest, most squalid type of humanity. The people of themiddle and upland districts of North Carolina are a much superior race tothe same class in South Carolina. They are mostly of Scotch-Irishdescent, with a strong infusion of English-Quaker blood, and resemblemuch the best of the Virginians. They make an effort to diffuseeducation, and have many of the virtues of a simple, non-progressive, tolerably industrious middle class. It was here that the strong Unionsentiment of North Carolina numbered most of its adherents. The peopleof the lowlands were as different as if belonging to another race. Theenormous mass of ignorance--the three hundred and fifty thousand men andwomen who could not read or write--were mostly black and white serfs ofthe great landholders, whose plantations lie within one hundred miles ofthe Atlantic coast. 

As we approached the coast the country became swampier, and our oldacquaintances, the cypress, with their malformed "knees, " became more andmore numerous. 

About the middle of the afternoon our train suddenly stopped. Lookingout to ascertain the cause, we were electrified to see a Rebel line ofbattle stretched across the track, about a half mile ahead of the engine, and with its rear toward us. It was as real a line as was ever seen onany field. The double ranks of "Butternuts, " with arms gleaming in theafternoon sun, stretched away out through the open pine woods, fartherthan we could see. Close behind the motionless line stood the companyofficers, leaning on their drawn swords. Behind these still, were theregimental officers on their horses. On a slight rise of the ground, agroup of horsemen, to whom other horsemen momentarily dashed up to orsped away from, showed the station of the General in command. On anotherknoll, at a little distance, were several-field pieces, standing "inbattery, " the cannoneers at the guns, the postillions dismounted andholding their horses by the bits, the caisson men standing in readinessto serve out ammunition. Our men were evidently close at hand in strongforce, and the engagement was likely to open at any instant. 

For a minute we were speechless with astonishment. Then came a surge ofexcitement. What should we do? What could we do? Obviously nothing. Eleven hundred, sick, enfeebled prisoners could not even overpower theirguards, let alone make such a diversion in the rear of a line-of-battleas would assist our folks to gain a victory. But while we debated theengine whistled sharply--a frightened shriek it sounded to us--and beganpushing our train rapidly backward over the rough and wretched track. Back, back we went, as fast as rosin and pine knots could force theengine to move us. The cars swayed continually back and forth, momentarily threatening to fly the crazy roadway, and roll over theembankment or into one of the adjacent swamps. We would have hailed sucha catastrophe, as it would have probably killed more of the guards thanof us, and the confusion would have given many of the survivorsopportunity to escape. But no such accident happened, and towardsmidnight we reached the bridge across the Great Pedee River, where ourtrain was stopped by a squad of Rebel cavalrymen, who brought theintelligence that as Kilpatrick was expected into Florence every hour, itwould not do to take us there. 

We were ordered off the cars, and laid down on the banks of the GreatPedee, our guards and the cavalry forming a line around us, and takingprecautions to defend the bridge against Kilpatrick, should he find outour whereabouts and come after us. 

"Well, Mc, " said Andrews, as we adjusted our old overcoat and blanket onthe ground for a bed; "I guess we needn't care whether school keeps ornot. Our fellows have evidently got both ends of the road, and arecoming towards us from each way. There's no road--not even a wagon road--for the Johnnies to run us off on, and I guess all we've got to do isto stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Bad as these houndsare, I don't believe they will shoot us down rather than let our folksretake us. At least they won't since old Winder's dead. If he wasalive, he'd order our throats cut--one by one--with the guards' pocketknives, rather than give us up. I'm only afraid we'll be allowed tostarve before our folks reach us. "

I concurred in this view. 

CHAPTER LXXVIII. 

RETURN TO FLORENCE AND A SHORT SOJOURN THERE--OFF TOWARDS WILMINGTONAGAIN--CRUISING A REBEL OFFICER'S LUNCH--SIGNS OF APPROACHING OUR LINES--TERROR OF OUR RASCALLY GUARDS--ENTRANCE INTO GOD'S COUNTRY AT LAST. 

But Kilpatrick, like Sherman, came not. Perhaps he knew that all theprisoners had been removed from the Stockade; perhaps he had otherbusiness of more importance on hand; probably his movement was only afeint. At all events it was definitely known the next day that he hadwithdrawn so far as to render it wholly unlikely that he intendedattacking Florence, so we were brought back and returned to our oldquarters. For a week or more we loitered about the now nearly-abandonedprison; skulked and crawled around the dismal mud-tents like the ghostlydenizens of some Potter's Field, who, for some reason had been allowed toreturn to earth, and for awhile creep painfully around the littlehillocks beneath which they had been entombed. 

A few score, whose vital powers were strained to the last degree oftension, gave up the ghost, and sank to dreamless rest. It mattered nowlittle to these when Sherman came, or when Kilpatrick's guidons shouldflutter through the forest of sighing pines, heralds of life, happiness, and home--

 After life's fitful fever they slept well Treason had done its worst. Nor steel nor poison: Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing Could touch them farther. 

One day another order came for us to be loaded on the cars, and over tothe railroad we went again in the same fashion as before. Thecomparatively few of us who were still able to walk at all well, loadedourselves down with the bundles and blankets of our less fortunatecompanions, who hobbled and limped--many even crawling on their hands andknees--over the hard, frozen ground, by our sides. 

Those not able to crawl even, were taken in wagons, for the orders wereimperative not to leave a living prisoner behind. 

At the railroad we found two trains awaiting us. On the front of eachengine were two rude white flags, made by fastening the halves of mealsacks to short sticks. The sight of these gave us some hope, but ourbelief that Rebels were constitutional liars and deceivers was so firmand fixed, that we persuaded ourselves that the flags meant nothing morethan some wilful delusion for us. 

Again we started off in the direction of Wilmington, and traversed thesame country described in the previous chapter. Again Andrews and Ifound ourselves in the next box car to the passenger coach containing theRebel officers. Again we cut a hole through the end, with our saw, andagain found a darky servant sitting on the rear platform. Andrews wentout and sat down alongside of him, and found that he was seated upon alarge gunny-bag sack containing the cooked rations of the Rebel officers. 

The intelligence that there was something there worth taking Andrewscommunicated to me by an expressive signal, of which soldiers campaigningtogether as long as he and I had, always have an extensive and wellunderstood code. 

I took a seat in the hole we had made in the end of the car, in reach ofAndrews. Andrews called the attention of the negro to some feature ofthe country near by, and asked him a question in regard to it. As helooked in the direction indicated, Andrews slipped his hand into themouth of the bag, and pulled out a small sack of wheat biscuits, which hepassed to me and I concealed. The darky turned and told Andrews allabout the matter in regard to which the interrogation had been made. Andrews became so much interested in what was being told him, that he satup closer and closer to the darky, who in turn moved farther away fromthe sack. 

Next we ran through a turpentine plantation, and as the darky waspointing out where the still, the master's place, the "quarters, " etc. , were, Andrews managed to fish out of that bag and pass to me threeroasted chickens. Then a great swamp called for description, and beforewe were through with it, I had about a peck of boiled sweet potatos. 

Andrews emptied the bag as the darky was showing him a great peanutplantation, taking from it a small frying-pan, a canteen of molasses, and a half-gallon tin bucket, which had been used to make coffee in. We divided up our wealth of eatables with the rest of the boys in thecar, not forgetting to keep enough to give ourselves a magnificent meal. 

As we ran along we searched carefully for the place where we had seen theline-of-battle, expecting that it would now be marked with signs of aterrible conflict, but we could see nothing. We could not even fix thelocality where the line stood. 

As it became apparent that we were going directly toward Wilmington, as fast as our engines could pull us, the excitement rose. We had manymisgivings as to whether our folks still retained possession ofWilmington, and whether, if they did, the Rebels could not stop at apoint outside of our lines, and transfer us to some other road. 

For hours we had seen nobody in the country through which we werepassing. What few houses were visible were apparently deserted, andthere were no Towns or stations anywhere. We were very anxious to seesome one, in hopes of getting a hint of what the state of affairs was inthe direction we were going. At length we saw a young man--apparently ascout--on horseback, but his clothes were equally divided between theblue and the butternut, as to give no clue to which side he belonged. 

An hour later we saw two infantrymen, who were evidently out foraging. They had sacks of something on their backs, and wore blue clothes. Thiswas a very hopeful sign of a near approach to our lines, but bitterexperience in the past warned us against being too sanguine. 

About 4 o'clock P. M. , the trains stopped and whistled long and loud. Looking out I could see--perhaps half-a-mile away--a line of rifle pitsrunning at right angles with the track. Guards, whose guns flashed asthey turned, were pacing up and down, but they were too far away for meto distinguish their uniforms. 

The suspense became fearful. 

But I received much encouragement from the singular conduct of ourguards. First I noticed a Captain, who had been especially mean to uswhile at Florence. 

He was walking on the ground by the train. His face was pale, his teethset, and his eyes shone with excitement. He called out in a strange, forced voice to his men and boys on the roof of the cars:

"Here, you fellers git down off'en thar and form a line. "

The fellows did so, in a slow, constrained, frightened ways and huddledtogether, in the most unsoldierly manner. 

The whole thing reminded me of a scene I once saw in our line, where aweak-kneed Captain was ordered to take a party of rather chicken-heartedrecruits out on the skirmish-line. 

We immediately divined what was the matter. The lines in front of uswere really those of our people, and the idiots of guards, not knowing oftheir entire safety when protected by a flag of truce, were scared halfout of their small wits at approaching so near to armed Yankees. 

We showered taunts and jeers upon them. An Irishman in my car yelledout:

"Och, ye dirty spalpeens; it's not shootin' prisoners ye are now; it'scumin' where the Yankee b'ys hev the gun; and the minnit ye say thim yerwhite livers show themselves in yer pale faces. Bad luck to theblatherin' bastards that yez are, and to the mothers that bore ye. "

At length our train moved up so near to the line that I could see it wasthe grand, old loyal blue that clothed the forms of the men who werepacing up and down. 

And certainly the world does not hold as superb looking men as theseappeared to me. Finely formed, stalwart, full-fed and well clothed, theyformed the most delightful contrast with the scrawny, shambling, villain-visaged little clay-eaters and white trash who had looked downupon us from the sentry boxes for many long months. 

I sprang out of the cars and began washing my face and hands in the ditchat the side of the road. The Rebel Captain, noticing me, said, in theold, hateful, brutal, imperious tone:

"Git back in dat cah, dah. "

An hour before I would have scrambled back as quickly as possible, knowing that an instant's hesitation would be followed by a bullet. Now, I looked him in the face, and said as irritatingly as possible:

"O, you go to ----, you Rebel. I'm going into Uncle Sam's lines with aslittle Rebel filth on me as possible. "

He passed me without replying. 

His day of shooting was past. 

Descending from the cars, we passed through the guards into our lines, a Rebel and a Union clerk checking us off as we passed. By the time itwas dark we were all under our flag again. 

The place where we came through was several miles west of Wilmington, where the railroad crossed a branch of the Cape Fear River. The pointwas held by a brigade of Schofield's army--the Twenty-Third Army Corps. 

The boys lavished unstinted kindness upon us. All of the brigade offduty crowded around, offering us blankets, shirts shoes, pantaloons andother articles of clothing and similar things that we were obviously inthe greatest need of. The sick were carried, by hundreds of willinghands, to a sheltered spot, and laid upon good, comfortable bedsimprovised with leaves and blankets. A great line of huge, generousfires was built, that every one of us could have plenty of place aroundthem. 

By and by a line of wagons came over from Wilmington laden with rations, and they were dispensed to us with what seemed reckless prodigality. The lid of a box of hard tack would be knocked off, and the contentshanded to us as we filed past, with absolute disregard as to quantity. If a prisoner looked wistful after receiving one handful of crackers, another was handed to him; if his long-famished eyes still lingered asif enchained by the rare display of food, the men who were issuing said:

"Here, old fellow, there's plenty of it: take just as much as you cancarry in your arms. "

So it was also with the pickled pork, the coffee, the sugar, etc. We hadbeen stinted and starved so long that we could not comprehend that therewas anywhere actually enough of anything. 

The kind-hearted boys who were acting as our hosts began preparing foodfor the sick, but the Surgeons, who had arrived in the meanwhile, werecompelled to repress them, as it was plain that while it was a dangerousexperiment to give any of us all we could or would eat, it would never doto give the sick such a temptation to kill themselves, and only a limitedamount of food was allowed to be given those who were unable to walk. 

Andrews and I hungered for coffee, the delightful fumes of which filledthe air and intoxicated our senses. We procured enough to make ourhalf-gallon bucket full and very strong. 

We drank so much of this that Andrews became positively drunk, and fellhelplessly into some brush. I pulled him out and dragged him away to aplace where we had made our rude bed. 

I was dazed. I could not comprehend that the long-looked for, often-despaired-of event had actually happened. I feared that it wasone of those tantalizing dreams that had so often haunted my sleep, onlyto be followed by a wretched awakening. Then I became seized with asudden fear lest the Rebel attempt to retake me. The line of guardsaround us seemed very slight. It might be forced in the night, and allof us recaptured. Shivering at this thought, absurd though it was, Iarose from our bed, and taking Andrews with me, crawled two or threehundred yards into a dense undergrowth, where in the event of our linesbeing forced, we would be overlooked. 

CHAPTER LXXIX. 

GETTING USED TO FREEDOM--DELIGHTS OF A LAND WHERE THERE IS ENOUGH OFEVERYTHING--FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE OLD FLAG--WILMINGTON AND ITS HISTORY--LIEUTENANT CUSHING--FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE COLORED TROOPS--LEAVINGFOR HOME--DESTRUCTION OF THE "THORN" BY A TORPEDO--THE MOCK MONITOR'SACHIEVEMENT. 

After a sound sleep, Andrews and I awoke to the enjoyment of our firstday of freedom and existence in God's country. The sun had alreadyrisen, bright and warm, consonant with the happiness of the new life nowopening up for us. 

But to nearly a score of our party his beams brought no awakeninggladness. They fell upon stony, staring eyes, from out of which thelight of life had now faded, as the light of hope had done long ago. The dead lay there upon the rude beds of fallen leaves, scraped togetherby thoughtful comrades the night before, their clenched teeth showingthrough parted lips, faces fleshless and pinched, long, unkempt andragged hair and whiskers just stirred by the lazy breeze, the rottingfeet and limbs drawn up, and skinny hands clenched in the last agonies. 

Their fate seemed harder than that of any who had died before them. It was doubtful if many of them knew that they were at last inside of ourown lines. 

Again the kind-hearted boys of the brigade crowded around us withproffers of service. Of an Ohio boy who directed his kind tenders toAndrews and me, we procured a chunk of coarse rosin soap about as big asa pack of cards, and a towel. Never was there as great a quantity ofsolid comfort got out of that much soap as we obtained. It was the firstthat we had since that which I stole in Wirz's headquarters, in June--nine months before. We felt that the dirt which had accumulated uponus since then would subject us to assessment as real estate if we werein the North. 

Hurrying off to a little creek we began our ablutions, and it was notlong until Andrews declared that there was a perceptible sand-bar formingin the stream, from what we washed off. Dirt deposits of the Plioceneera rolled off feet and legs. Eocene incrustations let loose reluctantlyfrom neck and ears; the hair was a mass of tangled locks matted with ninemonths' accumulation of pitch pine tar, rosin soot, and South Carolinasand, that we did not think we had better start in upon it until weeither had the shock cut off, or had a whole ocean and a vat of soap towash it out with. 

After scrubbing until we were exhausted we got off the first few outerlayers--the post tertiary formation, a geologist would term it--and thesmell of many breakfasts cooking, coming down over the hill, set ourstomachs in a mutiny against any longer fasting. 

We went back, rosy, panting, glowing, but happy, to get our selves somebreakfast. 

Should Providence, for some inscrutable reason, vouchsafe me the years ofMethuselah, one of the pleasantest recollections that will abide with meto the close of the nine hundredth and sixty-ninth year, will be of thatdelightful odor of cooking food which regaled our senses as we came back. From the boiling coffee and the meat frying in the pan rose an incensesweeter to the senses a thousand times than all the perfumes of farArabia. It differed from the loathsome odor of cooking corn meal as muchas it did from the effluvia of a sewer. 

Our noses were the first of our senses to bear testimony that we hadpassed from the land of starvation to that of plenty. Andrews and Ihastened off to get our own breakfast, and soon had a half-gallon ofstrong coffee, and a frying-pan full, of meat cooking over the fire--notone of the beggarly skimped little fires we had crouched over during ourmonths of imprisonment, but a royal, generous fire, fed with logs insteadof shavings and splinters, and giving out heat enough to warm a regiment. 

Having eaten positively all that we could swallow, those of us who couldwalk were ordered to fall in and march over to Wilmington. We crossedthe branch of the river on a pontoon bridge, and took the road that ledacross the narrow sandy island between the two branches, Wilmington beingsituated on the opposite bank of the farther one. 

When about half way a shout from some one in advance caused us to lookup, and then we saw, flying from a tall steeple in Wilmington, theglorious old Stars and Stripes, resplendent in the morning sun, and morebeautiful than the most gorgeous web from Tyrian looms. We stopped withone accord, and shouted and cheered and cried until every throat was soreand every eye red and blood-shot. It seemed as if our cup of happinesswould certainly run over if any more additions were made to it. 

When we arrived at the bank of the river opposite Wilmington, a wholeworld of new and interesting sights opened up before us. Wilmington, during the last year-and-a-half of the war, was, next to Richmond, themost important place in the Southern Confederacy. It was the only portto which blockade running was at all safe enough to be lucrative. TheRebels held the strong forts of Caswell and Fisher, at the mouth of CapeFear River, and outside, the Frying Pan Shoals, which extended along thecoast forty or fifty miles, kept our blockading fleet so far off, andmade the line so weak and scattered, that there was comparatively littlerisk to the small, swift-sailing vessels employed by the blockade runnersin running through it. The only way that blockade running could bestopped was by the reduction of Forts Caswell and Fisher, and it was notstopped until this was done. 

Before the war Wilmington was a dull, sleepy North Carolina Town, with aslittle animation of any kind as a Breton Pillage. The only business wasthe handling of the tar, turpentine, rosin, and peanuts produced in thesurrounding country, a business never lively enough to excite more than alazy ripple in the sluggish lagoons of trade. But very new wine was putinto this old bottle when blockade running began to develop inimportance. Then this Sleepy hollow of a place took on the appearance ofSan Francisco in the hight of the gold fever. The English houses engagedin blockade running established branches there conducted by young men wholived like princes. All the best houses in the City were leased by themand fitted up in the most gorgeous style. They literally clothedthemselves in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, withtheir fine wines and imported delicacies and retinue of servants to waitupon them. Fast young Rebel officers, eager for a season of dissipation, could imagine nothing better than a leave of absence to go to Wilmington. Money flowed like water. The common sailors--the scum of all foreignports--who manned the blockade runners, received as high as one hundreddollars in gold per month, and a bounty of fifty dollars for everysuccessful trip, which from Nassau could be easily made in seven days. Other people were paid in proportion, and as the old proverb says, "Whatcomes over the Devil's back is spent under his breast, " the money soobtained was squandered recklessly, and all sorts of debauchery ran riot. 

On the ground where we were standing had been erected several large steamcotton presses, built to compress cotton for the blockade runners. Around them were stored immense quantities of cotton, and near by werenearly as great stores of turpentine, rosin and tar. A little fartherdown the river was navy yard with docks, etc. , for the accommodation, building and repair of blockade runners. At the time our folks took FortFisher and advanced on Wilmington the docks were filled with vessels. The retreating Rebels set fire to everything--cotton, cotton presses, turpentine, rosin, tar, navy yard, naval stores, timber, docks, andvessels, and the fire made clean work. Our people arrived too late tosave anything, and when we came in the smoke from the burned cotton, turpentine, etc. , still filled the woods. It was a signal illustrationof the ravages of war. Here had been destroyed, in a few hours, moreproperty than a half-million industrious men would accumulate in theirlives. 

Almost as gratifying as the sight of the old flag flying in triumph, wasthe exhibition of our naval power in the river before us. The largerpart of the great North Atlantic squadron, which had done such excellentservice in the reduction of the defenses of Wilmington, was lying atanchor, with their hundreds of huge guns yawning as if ardent for moregreat forts to beat down, more vessels to sink, more heavy artillery tocrush, more Rebels to conquer. It seemed as if there were cannon enoughthere to blow the whole Confederacy into kingdom-come. All was life andanimation around the fleet. On the decks the officers were pacing up anddown. One on each vessel carried a long telescope, with which he almostconstantly swept the horizon. Numberless small boats, each rowed byneatly-uniformed men, and carrying a flag in the stern, darted hither andthither, carrying officers on errands of duty or pleasure. It was such ascene as enabled me to realize in a measure, the descriptions I had readof the pomp and circumstance of naval warfare. 

While we were standing, contemplating all the interesting sights withinview, a small steamer, about the size of a canal-boat, and carryingseveral bright brass guns, ran swiftly and noiselessly up to the docknear by, and a young, pale-faced officer, slender in build and nervous inmanner, stepped ashore. Some of the blue jackets who were talking to uslooked at him and the vessel with the greatest expression of interest, and said:

"Hello! there's the 'Monticello' and Lieutenant Cushing. "

This, then, was the naval boy hero, with whose exploits the whole countrywas ringing. Our sailor friends proceeded to tell us of hisachievements, of which they were justly proud. They told us of hisperilous scouts and his hairbreadth escapes, of his wonderful audacityand still more wonderful success--of his capture of Towns with a handfulof sailors, and the destruction of valuable stores, etc. I felt verysorry that the man was not a cavalry commander. There he would have hadfull scope for his peculiar genius. He had come prominently into noticein the preceding Autumn, when he had, by one of the most daringperformances narrated in naval history, destroyed the formidable ram"Albermarle. " This vessel had been constructed by the Rebels on theRoanoke River, and had done them very good service, first by assisting toreduce the forts and capture the garrison at Plymouth, N. C. , andafterward in some minor engagements. In October, 1864, she was lying atPlymouth. Around her was a boom of logs to prevent sudden approaches ofboats or vessels from our fleet. Cushing, who was then barelytwenty-one, resolved to attempt her destruction. He fitted up a steamlaunch with a long spar to which he attached a torpedo. On the night ofOctober 27th, with thirteen companions, he ran quietly up the Sound andwas not discovered until his boat struck the boom, when a terrific firewas opened upon him. Backing a short distance, he ran at the boom withsuch velocity that his boat leaped across it into the water beyond. Inan instant more his torpedo struck the side of the "Albemarle" andexploded, tearing a great hole in her hull, which sank her in a fewminutes. At the moment the torpedo went off the "Albermarle" fired oneof her great guns directly into the launch, tearing it completely topieces. Lieutenant Cushing and one comrade rose to the surface of theseething water and, swimming ashore, escaped. What became of the restis not known, but their fate can hardly be a matter of doubt. 

We were ferried across the river into Wilmington, and marched up thestreets to some vacant ground near the railroad depot, where we foundmost of our old Florence comrades already assembled. When they left usin the middle of February they were taken to Wilmington, and thence toGoldsboro, N. C. , where they were kept until the rapid closing in of ourArmies made it impracticable to hold them any longer, when they were sentback to Wilmington and given up to our forces as we had been. 

It was now nearly noon, and we were ordered to fall in and draw rations, a bewildering order to us, who had been so long in the habit of drawingfood but once a day. We fell in in single rank, and marched up, one at atime, past where a group of employees of the Commissary Department dealtout the food. One handed each prisoner as he passed a large slice ofmeat; another gave him a handful of ground coffee; a third a handful ofsugar; a fourth gave him a pickle, while a fifth and sixth handed him anonion and a loaf of fresh bread. This filled the horn of our plentyfull. To have all these in one day--meat, coffee, sugar, onions and softbread--was simply to riot in undreamed-of luxury. Many of the boys--poorfellows--could not yet realize that there was enough for all, or theycould not give up their old "flanking" tricks, and they stole around, and falling into the rear, came up again for' another share. We laughedat them, as did the Commissary men, who, nevertheless, duplicated therations already received, and sent them away happy and content. 

What a glorious dinner Andrews and I had, with our half gallon of strongcoffee, our soft bread, and a pan full of fried pork and onions! Such anenjoyable feast will never be, eaten again by us. 

Here we saw negro troops under arms for the first time--the most of theorganization of colored soldiers having been, done since our capture. It was startling at first to see a stalwart, coal-black negro stalkingalong with a Sergeant's chevrons on his arm, or to gaze on a regimentalline of dusky faces on dress parade, but we soon got used to it. Thefirst strong peculiarity of the negro soldier that impressed itself, uponus was his literal obedience of orders. A white soldier usually allowshimself considerable discretion in obeying orders--he aims more at thespirit, while the negro adheres to the strict letter of the command. 

For instance, the second day after our arrival a line of guards wereplaced around us, with orders not to allow any of us to go up townwithout a pass. The reason of this was that many weak--even dying-menwould persist in wandering about, and would be found exhausted, frequently dead, in various parts of the City. Andrews and I concludedto go up town. Approaching a negro sentinel he warned us back with, "Stand back, dah; don't come any furder; it's agin de awdahs; you can'tpass. "

He would not allow us to argue the case, but brought his gun to such athreatening position that we fell back. Going down the line a littlefarther, we came to a white sentinel, to whom I said:

"Comrade, what are your orders:"

He replied:

"My orders are not to let any of you fellows pass, but my beat onlyextends to that out-house there. "

Acting on this plain hint, we walked around the house and went up-town. The guard simply construed his orders in a liberal spirit. He reasonedthat they hardly applied to us, since we were evidently able to take careof ourselves. 

Later we had another illustration of this dog like fidelity of thecolored sentinel. A number of us were quartered in a large and emptywarehouse. On the same floor, and close to us, were a couple of veryfine horses belonging to some officer. We had not been in the warehousevery long until we concluded that the straw with which the horses werebedded would be better used in making couches for ourselves, and thissuggestion was instantly acted upon, and so thoroughly that there was nota straw left between the animals and the bare boards. Presently theowner of the horses came in, and he was greatly incensed at what had beendone. He relieved his mind of a few sulphurous oaths, and going out, came back soon with a man with more straw, and a colored soldier whom hestationed by the horses, saying:

"Now, look here. You musn't let anybody take anything sway from thesestalls; d'you understand me?--not a thing. "

He then went out. Andrews and I had just finished cooking dinner, andwere sitting down to eat it. Wishing to lend our frying-pan to anothermess, I looked around for something to lay our meat upon. Near thehorses I saw a book cover, which would answer the purpose admirably. Springing up, I skipped across to where it was, snatched it up, and ranback to my place. As I reached it a yell from the boys made me lookaround. The darky was coming at me "full tilt, " with his gun at a"charge bayonets. " As I turned he said:

"Put dat right back dah!"

I said:

"Why, this don't amount to anything, this is only an old book cover. It hasn't anything in the world to do with the horses. "

He only replied:

"Put dat right back dah!"

I tried another appeal:

"Now, you woolly-headed son of thunder, haven't you got sense enough toknow that the officer who posted you didn't mean such a thing as this!He only meant that we should not be allowed to take any of the horses'bedding or equipments; don't you see?"

I might as well have reasoned with a cigar store Indian. He set histeeth, his eyes showed a dangerous amount of white, and foreshorteninghis musket for a lunge, he hissed out again "Put dat right back dah, Itell you!"

I looked at the bayonet; it was very long, very bright, and very sharp. It gleamed cold and chilly like, as if it had not run through a man for along time, and yearned for another opportunity. Nothing but the whitesof the darky's eyes could now be seen. I did not want to perish there inthe fresh bloom of my youth and loveliness; it seemed to me as if it wasmy duty to reserve myself for fields of future usefulness, so I walkedback and laid the book cover precisely on the spot whence I had obtainedit, while the thousand boys in the house set up a yell of sarcasticlaughter. 

We staid in Wilmington a few days, days of almost purely animalenjoyment--the joy of having just as much to eat as we could possiblyswallow, and no one to molest or make us afraid in any way. How we dideat and fill up. The wrinkles in our skin smoothed out under thestretching, and we began to feel as if we were returning to our oldplumpness, though so far the plumpness was wholly abdominal. 

One morning we were told that the transports would begin going back withus that afternoon, the first that left taking the sick. Andrews and I, true to our old prison practices, resolved to be among those on the firstboat. We slipped through the guards and going up town, went straight toMajor General Schofield's headquarters and solicited a pass to go on thefirst boat--the steamer "Thorn. " General Schofield treated us verykindly; but declined to let anybody but the helplessly sick go on the"Thorn. " Defeated here we went down to where the vessel was lying at thedock, and tried to smuggle ourselves aboard, but the guard was too strongand too vigilant, and we were driven away. Going along the dock, angryand discouraged by our failure, we saw a Surgeon, at a little distance, who was examining and sending the sick who could walk aboard anothervessel--the "General Lyon. " We took our cue, and a little shammingsecured from him tickets which permitted us to take our passage in her. The larger portion of those on board were in the hold, and a few were ondeck. Andrews and I found a snug place under the forecastle, by theanchor chains. 

Both vessels speedily received their complement, and leaving their docks, started down the river. The "Thorn" steamed ahead of us, anddisappeared. Shortly after we got under way, the Colonel who was put incommand of the boat--himself a released prisoner--came around on a tourof inspection. He found about one thousand of us aboard, and singling meout made me the non-commissioned officer in command. I was put incharge, of issuing the rations and of a barrel of milk punch which theSanitary Commission had sent down to be dealt out on the voyage to suchas needed it. I went to work and arranged the boys in the best way Icould, and returned to the deck to view the scenery. 

Wilmington is thirty-four miles from the sea, and the river for thatdistance is a calm, broad estuary. At this time the resources of Rebelengineering were exhausted in defense against its passage by a hostilefleet, and undoubtedly the best work of the kind in the SouthernConfederacy was done upon it. At its mouth were Forts Fisher andCaswell, the strongest sea coast forts in the Confederacy. Fort Caswellwas an old United States fort, much enlarged and strengthened. FortFisher was a new work, begun immediately after the beginning of the war, and labored at incessantly until captured. Behind these every one of thethirty-four miles to Wilmington was covered with the fire of the bestguns the English arsenals could produce, mounted on forts built at everyadvantageous spot. Lines of piles running out into the water, forcedincoming vessels to wind back and forth across the stream under thepoint-blank range of massive Armstrong rifles. As if this were notsufficient, the channel was thickly studded with torpedoes that wouldexplode at the touch of the keel of a passing vessel. These abundantprecautions, and the telegram from General Lee, found in Fort Fisher, stating that unless that stronghold and Fort Caswell were held he couldnot hold Richmond, give some idea of the importance of the place to theRebels. 

We passed groups of hundreds of sailors fishing for torpedos, and sawmany of these dangerous monsters, which they had hauled up out of thewater. We caught up with the "Thorn, " when about half way to the sea, passed her, to our great delight, and soon left a gap between us ofnearly half-a-mile. We ran through an opening in the piling, holding upclose to the left side, and she apparently followed our course exactly. Suddenly there was a dull roar; a column of water, bearing with itfragments of timbers, planking and human bodies, rose up through one sideof the vessel, and, as it fell, she lurched forward and sank. She hadstruck a torpedo. I never learned the number lost, but it must have beenvery great. 

Some little time after this happened we approached Fort Anderson, themost powerful of the works between Wilmington and the forts at the mouthof the sea. It was built on the ruins of the little Town of Brunswick, destroyed by Cornwallis during the Revolutionary War. We saw a monitorlying near it, and sought good positions to view this specimen of theredoubtable ironclads of which we had heard and read so much. It lookedprecisely as it did in pictures, as black, as grim, and as uncompromisingas the impregnable floating fortress which had brought the "Merrimac" toterms. 

But as we approached closely we noticed a limpness about the smoke stackthat seemed very inconsistent with the customary rigidity of cylindricaliron. Then the escape pipe seemed scarcely able to maintain itselfupright. A few minutes later we discovered that our terrible Cyclops ofthe sea was a flimsy humbug, a theatrical imitation, made by stretchingblackened canvas over a wooden frame. 

One of the officers on board told us its story. After the fall of FortFisher the Rebels retired to Fort Anderson, and offered a desperateresistance to our army and fleet. Owing to the shallowness of the waterthe latter could not come into close enough range to do effective work. Then the happy idea of this sham monitor suggested itself to some one. It was prepared, and one morning before daybreak it was sent floating inon the tide. The other monitors opened up a heavy fire from theirposition. The Rebels manned their guns and replied vigorously, byconcentrating a terrible cannonade on the sham monitor, which sailedgrandly on, undisturbed by the heavy rifled bolts tearing through hercanvas turret. Almost frantic with apprehension of the result if shecould not be checked, every gun that would bear was turned upon her, andtorpedos were exploded in her pathway by electricity. All these shetreated with the silent contempt they merited from so invulnerable amonster. At length, as she reached a good easy range of the fort, herbow struck something, and she swung around as if to open fire. That wasenough for the Rebels. With Schofield's army reaching out to cut offtheir retreat, and this dreadful thing about to tear the insides out oftheir fort with four-hundred-pound shot at quarter-mile range, there wasnothing for them to do but consult their own safety, which they did withsuch haste that they did not spike a gun, or destroy a pound of stores. 

CHAPTER LXXX. 

VISIT TO FORT FISHER, AND INSPECTION OF THAT STRONGHOLD--THE WAY IT WASCAPTURED--OUT ON THE OCEAN SAILING--TERRIBLY SEASICK--RAPID RECOVERY--ARRIVAL AT ANNAPOLIS--WASHED, CLOTHED AND FED--UNBOUNDED LUXURY, ANDDAYS OF UNADULTERATED HAPPINESS. 

When we reached the mouth of Cape Fear River the wind was blowing so hardthat our Captain did not think it best to venture out, so he cast anchor. The cabin of the vessel was filled with officers who had been releasedfrom prison about the same time we were. I was also given a berth in thecabin, in consideration of my being the non-commissioned officer incharge of the men, and I found the associations quite pleasant. A partywas made up, which included me, to visit Fort Fisher, and we spent thelarger part of a day very agreeably in wandering over that greatstronghold. We found it wonderful in its strength, and were prepared toaccept the statement of those who had seen foreign defensive works, thatit was much more powerful than the famous Malakoff, which so long defiedthe besiegers of Sebastopol. 

The situation of the fort was on a narrow and low spit of ground betweenCape Fear River and the ocean. On this the Rebels had erected, withprodigious labor, an embankment over a mile in length, twenty-five feetthick and twenty feet high. About two-thirds of this bank faced the sea;the other third ran across the spit of land to protect the fort againstan attack from the land side. Still stronger than the bank forming thefront of the fort were the traverses, which prevented an enfilading fireThese were regular hills, twenty-five to forty feet high, and broad andlong in proportion. There were fifteen or twenty of them along the faceof the fort. Inside of them were capacious bomb proofs, sufficientlylarge to shelter the whole garrison. It seemed as if a whole Townshiphad been dug up, carted down there and set on edge. In front of theworks was a strong palisade. Between each pair of traverses were one ortwo enormous guns, none less than one-hundred-and-fifty pounders. Amongthese we saw a great Armstrong gun, which had been presented to theSouthern Confederacy by its manufacturer, Sir William Armstrong, who, like the majority of the English nobility, was a warm admirer of theJeff. Davis crowd. It was the finest piece of ordnance ever seen in thiscountry. The carriage was rosewood, and the mountings gilt brass. Thebreech of the gun had five reinforcements. 

To attack this place our Government assembled the most powerful fleetever sent on such an expedition. Over seventy-five men-of-war, includingsix monitors, and carrying six hundred guns, assailed it with a storm ofshot and shell that averaged four projectiles per second for severalhours; the parapet was battered, and the large guns crushed as onesmashes a bottle with a stone. The garrison fled into the bomb-proofsfor protection. The troops, who had landed above the fort, moved up toassail the land face, while a brigade of sailors and marines attacked thesea face. 

As the fleet had to cease firing to allow the charge, the Rebels ran outof their casemates and, manning the parapet, opened such a fire ofmusketry that the brigade from the fleet was driven back, but thesoldiers made a lodgment on the land face. Then began some beautifulcooperative tactics between the Army and Navy, communication being keptup with signal flags. Our men were on one side of the parapets and theRebels on the other, with the fighting almost hand-to-hand. The vesselsranged out to where their guns would rake the Rebel line, and as theirshot tore down its length, the Rebels gave way, and falling back to thenext traverse, renewed the conflict there. Guided by the signals ourvessels changed their positions, so as to rake this line also, and so thefight went on until twelve traverses had been carried, one after theother, when the rebels surrendered. 

The next day the Rebels abandoned Fort Caswell and other fortificationsin the immediate neighborhood, surrendered two gunboats, and fell back tothe lines at Fort Anderson. After Fort Fisher fell, severalblockade-runners were lured inside and captured. 

Never before had there been such a demonstration of the power of heavyartillery. Huge cannon were pounded into fragments, hills of sand rippedopen, deep crevasses blown in the ground by exploding shells, woodenbuildings reduced to kindling-wood, etc. The ground was literally pavedwith fragments of shot and shell, which, now red with rust from thecorroding salt air, made the interior of the fort resemble what one ofour party likened it to "an old brickyard. "

Whichever way we looked along the shores we saw abundant evidence of thegreatness of the business which gave the place its importance. In alldirections, as far as the eye could reach, the beach was dotted with thebleaching skeletons of blockade-runners--some run ashore by theirmistaking the channel, more beached to escape the hot pursuit of ourblockaders. 

Directly in front of the sea face of the fort, and not four hundred yardsfrom the savage mouths of the huge guns, the blackened timbers of aburned blockade-runner showed above the water at low tide. Coming infrom Nassau with a cargo of priceless value to the gasping Confederacy, she was observed and chased by one of our vessels, a swifter sailer, even, than herself. The war ship closed rapidly upon her. She soughtthe protection of the guns of Fort Fisher, which opened venomously on thechaser. They did not stop her, though they were less than half a mileaway. In another minute she would have sent the Rebel vessel to thebottom of the sea, by a broadside from her heavy guns, but the Captain ofthe latter turned her suddenly, and ran her high up on the beach, wrecking his vessel, but saving the much more valuable cargo. Our vesselthen hauled off, and as night fell, quiet was restored. At midnight twoboat-loads of determined men, rowing with muffled oars moved silently outfrom the blockader towards the beached vessel. In their boats they hadsome cans of turpentine, and several large shells. When they reached theblockade-runner they found all her crew gone ashore, save one watchman, whom they overpowered before he could give the alarm. They cautiouslyfelt their way around, with the aid of a dark lantern, secured the ship'schronometer, her papers and some other desired objects. They thensaturated with the turpentine piles of combustible material, placed aboutthe vessel to the best advantage, and finished by depositing the shellswhere their explosion would ruin the machinery. All this was done sonear to the fort that the sentinels on the parapets could be heard withthe greatest distinctness as they repeated their half-hourly cry of"All's well. " Their preparations completed, the daring fellows touchedmatches to the doomed vessel in a dozen places at once, and sprang intotheir boats. The flames instantly enveloped the ship, and showed thegunners the incendiaries rowing rapidly away. A hail of shot beat thewater into a foam around the boats, but their good fortune still attendedthem, and they got back without losing a man. 

The wind at length calmed sufficiently to encourage our Captain toventure out, and we were soon battling with the rolling waves, far out ofsight of land. For awhile the novelty of the scene fascinated me. I wasat last on the ocean, of which I had heard, read and imagined so much. The creaking cordage, the straining engine, the plunging ship, the wildwaste of tumbling billows, everyone apparently racing to where ourtossing bark was struggling to maintain herself, all had an entrancinginterest for me, and I tried to recall Byron's sublime apostrophe to theocean:

 Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Classes itself in tempest: in all time, Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving--boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of eternity--the throne Of the invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obey thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone, Just then, my reverie was broken by the strong hand of the gruff Captainof, the vessel descending upon my shoulder, and he said:

"See, here, youngster! Ain't you the fellow that was put in command ofthese men?"

I acknowledged such to be the case. 

"Well, " said the Captain; "I want you to 'tend to your business andstraighten them around, so that we can clean off the decks. "

I turned from the bulwark over which I had been contemplating the vastydeep, and saw the sorriest, most woe-begone lot that the imagination canconceive. Every mother's son was wretchedly sea-sick. They were payingthe penalty of their overfeeding in Wilmington; and every face looked asif its owner was discovering for the first time what the real lowerdepths of human misery was. They all seemed afraid they would not die;as if they were praying for death, but feeling certain that he was goingback on them in a most shameful way. 

We straightened them around a little, washed them and the decks off witha hose, and then I started down in the hold to see how matters were withthe six hundred down there. The boys there were much sicker than thoseon deck. As I lifted the hatch there rose an odor which appeared strongenough to raise the plank itself. Every onion that had been issued to usin Wilmington seemed to lie down there in the last stages ofdecomposition. All of the seventy distinct smells which Coleridgecounted at Cologne might have been counted in any given cubic foot ofatmosphere, while the next foot would have an entirely different andequally demonstrative "bouquet. "

I recoiled, and leaned against the bulwark, but soon summoned up courageenough to go half-way down the ladder, and shout out in as stern a toneas I could command:

"Here, now! I want you fellows to straighten around there, right off, and help clean up!"

They were as angry and cross as they were sick. They wanted nothing inthe world so much as the opportunity I had given them to swear at andabuse somebody. Every one of them raised on his elbow, and shaking hisfist at me yelled out:

"O, you go to ----, you ---- ---- ----. Just come down another step, and I'll knock the whole head off 'en you. "

I did not go down any farther. 

Coming back on the deck my stomach began to feel qualmish. Some wretchedidiot, whose grandfather's grave I hope the jackasses have defiled, asthe Turks would say, told me that the best preventive of sea-sickness wasto drink as much of the milk punch as I could swallow. 

Like another idiot, I did so. 

I went again to the side of the vessel, but now the fascination of thescene had all faded out. The restless billows were dreary, savage, hungry and dizzying; they seemed to claw at, and tear, and wrench thestruggling ship as a group of huge lions would tease and worry a captivedog. They distressed her and all on board by dealing a blow which wouldsend her reeling in one direction, but before she had swung the fulllength that impulse would have sent her, catching her on the oppositeside with a stunning shock that sent her another way, only to meetanother rude buffet from still another side. 

I thought we could all have stood it if the motion had been like that ofa swing-backward and forward--or even if the to and fro motion had beencomplicated with a side-wise swing, but to be put through every possiblebewildering motion in the briefest space of time was more than heads ofiron and stomachs of brass could stand. 

Mine were not made of such perdurable stuff. 

They commenced mutinous demonstrations in regard to the milk punch. 

I began wondering whether the milk was not the horrible beer swill, stump-tail kind of which I had heard so much. 

And the whisky in it; to use a vigorous Westernism, descriptive of meanwhisky, it seemed to me that I could smell the boy's feet who plowed thecorn from which it was distilled. 

Then the onions I had eaten in Wilmington began to rebel, and incite thebread, meat and coffee to gastric insurrection, and I became so utterlywretched that life had no farther attractions. 

While I was leaning over the bulwark, musing on the complete hollownessof all earthly things, the Captain of the vessel caught hold of meroughly, and said:

"Look here, you're just playin' the very devil a-commandin' these heremen. Why in ---- don't you stiffen up, and hump yourself around, andmake these men mind, or else belt them over the head with a capstan bar!Now I want you to 'tend to your business. D'you understand me?"

I turned a pair of weary and hopeless eyes upon him, and started to saythat a man who would talk to one in my forlorn condition of "stiffeningup, " and "belting other fellows over the head with a capstan bar, " wouldinsult a woman dying with consumption, but I suddenly became too full forutterance. 

The milk punch, the onions, the bread, and meat and coffee tired offighting it out in the narrow quarters where I had stowed them, hadstarted upwards tumultuously. 

I turned my head again to the sea, and looking down into its smaragdinedepths, let go of the victualistic store which I had been industriouslyaccumulating ever since I had come through the lines. 

I vomited until I felt as empty and hollow as a stove pipe. There was avacuum that extended clear to my toe-nails. I feared that every retchingstruggle would dent me in, all over, as one sees tin preserving canscrushed in by outside pressure, and I apprehended that if I kept on muchlonger my shoe-soles would come up after the rest. 

I will mention, parenthetically, that, to this day I abhor milk punch, and also onions. 

Unutterably miserable as I was I could not refrain from a ghost of asmile, when a poor country boy near me sang out in an interval betweenvomiting spells:

"O, Captain, for God's sake, stop the boat and lem'me go ashore, and Iswear I'll walk every step of the way home. "

He was like old Gonzalo in the 'Tempest:'

 Now world I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath; brown furze; anything. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. 

After this misery had lasted about two days we got past Cape Hatteras, and out of reach of its malign influence, and recovered as rapidly as wehad been prostrated. 

We regained spirits and appetites with amazing swiftness; the sun cameout warm and cheerful, we cleaned up our quarters and ourselves as bestwe could, and during the remainder of the voyage were as blithe andcheerful as so many crickets. 

The fun in the cabin was rollicking. The officers had been as sick asthe men, but were wonderfully vivacious when the 'mal du mer' passed off. In the party was a fine glee club, which had been organized at "CampSorgum, " the officers' prison at Columbia. Its leader was a Major of theFifth Iowa Cavalry, who possessed a marvelously sweet tenor voice, andwell developed musical powers. While we were at Wilmington he sang "WhenSherman Marched Down to the Sea, " to an audience of soldiers that packedthe Opera House densely. 

The enthusiasm he aroused was simply indescribable; men shouted, and thetears ran down their faces. He was recalled time and again, each timewith an increase in the furore. The audience would have staid there allnight to listen to him sing that one song. Poor fellow, he only wenthome to die. An attack of pneumonia carried him off within a fortnightafter we separated at Annapolis. 

The Glee Club had several songs which they rendered in regular negrominstrel style, and in a way that was irresistibly ludicrous. One oftheir favorites was "Billy Patterson. " All standing up in a ring, thetenors would lead off:

 "I saw an old man go riding by, "

and the baritones, flinging themselves around with the looseness ofChristy's Minstrels, in a "break down, " would reply:

 "Don't tell me! Don't tell me!"

Then the tenors would resume:

 "Says I, Ole man, your horse'll die. "

Then the baritones, with an air of exaggerated interest;

 "A-ha-a-a, Billy Patterson!"

Tenors:

 "For. It he dies, I'll tan his skin; An' if he lives I'll ride him agin, "

All-together, with a furious "break down" at the close:

 "Then I'll lay five dollars down, And count them one by one; Then I'll lay five dollars down, If anybody will show me the man That struck Billy Patterson. "

And so on. It used to upset my gravity entirely to see a crowd of graveand dignified Captains, Majors and Colonels going through thisnonsensical drollery with all the abandon of professional burnt-corkartists. 

As we were nearing the entrance to Chesapeake Bay we passed a greatmonitor, who was exercising her crew at the guns. She fired directlyacross our course, the huge four hundred pound balls shipping along thewater, about a mile ahead of us, as we boys used to make the flat stonesskip in the play of "Ducks and Drakes. " One or two of the shots came so. Close that I feared she might be mistaking us for a Rebel ship intent onsome raid up the Bay, and I looked up anxiously to see that the flagshould float out so conspicuously that she could not help seeing it. 

The next day our vessel ran alongside of the dock at the Naval Academy atAnnapolis, that institution now being used as a hospital for paroledprisoners. The musicians of the Post band came down with stretchers tocarry the sick to the Hospital, while those of us who were able to walkwere ordered to fall in and march up. The distance was but a few hundredyards. On reaching the building we marched up on a little balcony, andas we did so each one of us was seized by a hospital attendant, who, withthe quick dexterity attained by long practice, snatched every one of ourfilthy, lousy rags off in the twinkling of an eye, and flung them overthe railing to the ground, where a man loaded them into a wagon with apitchfork. 

With them went our faithful little black can, our hoop-iron spoon, andour chessboard and men. 

Thus entirely denuded, each boy was given a shove which sent him into alittle room, where a barber pressed him down upon a stool, and almostbefore he understood what was being done, had his hair and beard cut offas close as shears would do it. Another tap on the back sent the shornlamb into a room furnished with great tubs of water and with about sixinches of soap suds on the zinc-covered floor. 

In another minute two men with sponges had removed every trace of prisongrime from his body, and passed him on to two more men, who wiped himdry, and moved him on to where a man handed him a new shirt, a pair ofdrawers, pair of socks, pair of pantaloons, pair of slippers, and ahospital gown, and motioned him to go on into the large room, and arrayhimself in his new garments. Like everything else about the Hospitalthis performance was reduced to a perfect system. Not a word was spokenby anybody, not a moment's time lost, and it seemed to me that it was notten minutes after I marched up on the balcony, covered with dirt, rags, vermin, and a matted shock of hair, until I marched out of the room, clean and well clothed. Now I began to feel as if I was really a managain. 

The next thing done was to register our names, rank, regiment, when andwhere captured, when and where released. After this we were shown to ourrooms. And such rooms as they were. All the old maids in the countrycould not have improved their spick-span neatness. The floors were aswhite as pine plank could be scoured; the sheets and bedding as clean ascotton and linen and woolen could be washed. Nothing in any home in theland was any more daintily, wholesomely, unqualifiedly clean than werethese little chambers, each containing two beds, one for each manassigned to their occupancy. 

Andrews doubted if we could stand all this radical change in our habits. He feared that it was rushing things too fast. We might have had ourhair cut one week, and taken a bath all over a week later, and soprogress down to sleeping between white sheets in the course of sixmonths, but to do it all in one day seemed like tempting fate. 

Every turn showed us some new feature of the marvelous order of thiswonderful institution. Shortly after we were sent to our rooms, a Surgeon entered with a Clerk. After answering the usual questions asto name, rank, company and regiment, the Surgeon examined our tongues, eyes, limbs and general appearance, and communicated his conclusions tothe Clerk, who filled out a blank card. This card was stuck into alittle tin holder at the head of my bed. Andrews's card was the same, except the name. The Surgeon was followed by a Sergeant, who was Chiefof the Dining-Room, and the Clerk, who made a minute of the diet orderedfor us, and moved off. Andrews and I immediately became very solicitousto know what species of diet No. 1 was. After the seasickness left usour appetites became as ravenous as a buzz-saw, and unless Diet No. 1 wasmore than No. 1 in name, it would not fill the bill. We had not long toremain in suspense, for soon another non-commissioned officer passedthrough at the head of a train of attendants, bearing trays. Consultingthe list in his hand, he said to one of his followers, "Two No. 1's, "and that satellite set down two large plates, upon each of which were acup of coffee, a shred of meat, two boiled eggs and a couple of rolls. 

"Well, " said Andrews, as the procession moved away, "I want to know wherethis thing's going to stop. I am trying hard to get used to wearing ashirt without any lice in it, and to sitting down on a chair, and tosleeping in a clean bed, but when it comes to having my meals sent to myroom, I'm afraid I'll degenerate into a pampered child of luxury. Theyare really piling it on too strong. Let us see, Mc. ; how long's it beensince we were sitting on the sand there in Florence, boiling our pint ofmeal in that old can?"

"It seems many years, Lale, " I said; "but for heaven's sake let us try toforget it as soon as possible. We will always remember too much of it. "

And we did try hard to make the miserable recollections fade out of ourminds. When we were stripped on the balcony we threw away every visibletoken that could remind us of the hateful experience we had passedthrough. We did not retain a scrap of paper or a relic to recall theunhappy past. We loathed everything connected with it. 

The days that followed were very happy ones. The Paymaster came aroundand paid us each two months' pay and twenty-five cents a day "rationmoney" for every day we had been in prison. This gave Andrews and Iabout one hundred and sixty-five dollars apiece--an abundance of spendingmoney. Uncle Sam was very kind and considerate to his soldier nephews, and the Hospital authorities neglected nothing that would add to ourcomfort. The superbly-kept grounds of the Naval Academy were renewingthe freshness of their loveliness under the tender wooing of theadvancing Spring, and every step one sauntered through them was a newdelight. A magnificent band gave us sweet music morning and evening. Every dispatch from the South told of the victorious progress of ourarms, and the rapid approach of the close of the struggle. All we had todo was to enjoy the goods the gods were showering upon us, and we did sowith appreciative, thankful hearts. After awhile all able to travel weregiven furloughs of thirty days to visit their homes, with instructions toreport at the expiration of their leaves of absence to the camps ofrendezvous nearest their homes, and we separated, nearly every man goingin a different direction. 

CHAPTER LXXXI. 

CAPTAIN WIRZ THE ONLY ONE OF THE PRISON-KEEPERS PUNISHED--HIS ARREST, TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 

Of all those more or less concerned in the barbarities practiced upon ourprisoners, but one--Captain Henry Wirz--was punished. The Turners, atRichmond; Lieutenant Boisseux, of Belle Isle; Major Gee, of Salisbury;Colonel Iverson and Lieutenant Barrett, of Florence; and the many brutalmiscreants about Andersonville, escaped scot free. What became of themno one knows; they were never heard of after the close of the war. Theyhad sense enough to retire into obscurity, and stay there, and this savedtheir lives, for each one of them had made deadly enemies among thosewhom they had maltreated, who, had they known where they were, would havewalked every step of the way thither to kill them. 

When the Confederacy went to pieces in April, 1865, Wirz was still atAndersonville. General Wilson, commanding our cavalry forces, and whohad established his headquarters at Macon, Ga. , learned of this, and sentone of his staff--Captain H. E. Noyes, of the Fourth Regular Cavalry--with a squad. Of men, to arrest him. This was done on the 7th of May. Wirz protested against his arrest, claiming that he was protected by theterms of Johnson's surrender, and, addressed the following letter toGeneral Wilson:

 ANDERSONVILLE, GA. , May 7, 1865. 

GENERAL:--It is with great reluctance that I address you these lines, being fully aware how little time is left you to attend to such mattersas I now have the honor to lay before you, and if I could see any otherway to accomplish my object I would not intrude upon you. I am a nativeof Switzerland, and was before the war a citizen of Louisiana, and byprofession a physician. Like hundreds and thousands of others, I wascarried away by the maelstrom of excitement and joined the Southern army. I was very severely wounded at the battle of "Seven Pines, " nearRichmond, Va. , and have nearly lost the use of my right arm. Unfit forfield duty, I was ordered to report to Brevet Major General John H. Winder, in charge of the Federal prisoners of war, who ordered me to takecharge of a prison in Tuscaloosa, Ala. My health failing me, I appliedfor a furlough and went to Europe, from whence I returned in February, 1864. I was then ordered to report to the commandant of the militaryprison at Andersonville, Ga. , who assigned me to the command of theinterior of the prison. The duties I had to perform were arduous andunpleasant, and I am satisfied that no man can or will justly blame mefor things that happened here, and which were beyond my power to control. I do not think that I ought to be held responsible for the shortness ofrations, for the overcrowded state of the prison, (which was of itself aprolific source of fearful mortality), for the inadequate supply ofclothing, want of shelter, etc. , etc. Still I now bear the odium, andmen who were prisoners have seemed disposed to wreak their vengeance uponme for what they have suffered--I, who was only the medium, or, I maybetter say, the tool in the hands of my superiors. This is my condition. I am a man with a family. I lost all my property when the Federal armybesieged Vicksburg. I have no money at present to go to any place, and, even if I had, I know of no place where I can go. My life is in danger, and I most respectfully ask of you help and relief. If you will be sogenerous as to give me some sort of a safe conduct, or, what I shouldgreatly prefer, a guard to protect myself and family against violence, I should be thankful to you, and you may rest assured that yourprotection will not be given to one who is unworthy of it. My intentionis to return with my family to Europe, as soon as I can make thearrangements. In the meantime I have the honor General, to remain, veryrespectfully, your obedient servant, Hy. WIRZ, Captain C. S. A. Major General T. H. WILSON, Commanding, Macon. Ga. 

He was kept at Macon, under guard, until May 20, when Captain Noyes wasordered to take him, and the hospital records of Andersonville, toWashington. Between Macon and Cincinnati the journey was a perfectgauntlet. 

Our men were stationed all along the road, and among them everywhere wereex-prisoners, who recognized Wirz, and made such determined efforts tokill him that it was all that Captain Noyes, backed by a strong guard, could do to frustrate them. At Chattanooga and Nashville the strugglebetween his guards and his would-be slayers, was quite sharp. 

At Louisville, Noyes had Wirz clean-shaved, and dressed in a completesuit of black, with a beaver hat, which so altered his appearance that noone recognized him after that, and the rest of the journey was madeunmolested. 

The authorities at Washington ordered that he be tried immediately, by acourt martial composed of Generals Lewis Wallace, Mott, Geary, L. Thomas, Fessenden, Bragg and Baller, Colonel Allcock, and Lieutenant-ColonelStibbs. Colonel Chipman was Judge Advocate, and the trial beganAugust 23. 

The prisoner was arraigned on a formidable list of charges andspecifications, which accused him of "combining, confederating, andconspiring together with John H. Winder, Richard B. Winder, Isaiah II. White, W. S. Winder, R. R. Stevenson and others unknown, to injure thehealth and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of theUnited States, there held, and being prisoners of war within the lines ofthe so-called Confederate States, and in the military prisons thereof, tothe end that the armies of the United States might be weakened andimpaired, in violation of the laws and customs of war. " The main factsof the dense over-crowding, the lack of sufficient shelter, the hideousmortality were cited, and to these added a long list of specific acts ofbrutality, such as hunting men down with hounds, tearing them with dogs, robbing them, confining them in the stocks, cruelly beating and murderingthem, of which Wirz was personally guilty. 

When the defendant was called upon to plead he claimed that his case wascovered by the terms of Johnston's surrender, and furthermore, that thecountry now being at peace, he could not be lawfully tried by acourt-martial. These objections being overruled, he entered a plea ofnot guilty to all the charges and specifications. He had two lawyersfor counsel. 

The prosecution called Captain Noyes first, who detailed thecircumstances of Wirz's arrest, and denied that he had given any promisesof protection. 

The next witness was Colonel George C. Gibbs, who commanded the troops ofthe post at Andersonville. He testified that Wirz was the commandant ofthe prison, and had sole authority under Winder over all the prisoners;that there was a Dead Line there, and orders to shoot any one who crossedit; that dogs were kept to hunt down escaping prisoners; the dogs werethe ordinary plantation dogs, mixture of hound and cur. 

Dr. J. C. Bates, who was a Surgeon of the Prison Hospital, (a Rebel), testified that the condition of things in his division was horrible. Nearly naked men, covered with lice, were dying on all sides. Many werelying in the filthy sand and mud. 

He went on and described the terrible condition of men--dying fromscurvy, diarrhea, gangrenous sores, and lice. He wanted to carry infresh vegetables for the sick, but did not dare, the orders being verystrict against such thing. He thought the prison authorities mighteasily have sent in enough green corn to have stopped the scurvy; themiasmatic effluvia from the prison was exceedingly offensive andpoisonous, so much so that when the surgeons received a slight scratch ontheir persons, they carefully covered it up with court plaster, beforeventuring near the prison. 

A number of other Rebel Surgeons testified to substantially the samefacts. Several residents of that section of the State testified to theplentifulness of the crops there in 1864. 

In addition to these, about one hundred and fifty Union prisoners wereexamined, who testified to all manner of barbarities which had come undertheir personal observation. They had all seen Wirz shoot men, had seenhim knock sick and crippled men down and stamp upon them, had been rundown by him with hounds, etc. Their testimony occupies about twothousand pages of manuscript, and is, without doubt, the most, terriblerecord of crime ever laid to the account of any man. 

The taking of this testimony occupied until October 18, when theGovernment decided to close the case, as any further evidence would besimply cumulative. 

The prisoner presented a statement in which he denied that there had beenan accomplice in a conspiracy of John H. Winder and others, to destroythe lives of United States soldiers; he also denied that there had beensuch a conspiracy, but made the pertinent inquiry why he alone, of allthose who were charged with the conspiracy, was brought to trial. Hesaid that Winder has gone to the great judgment seat, to answer for allhis thoughts, words and deeds, "and surely I am not to be held culpablefor them. General Howell Cobb has received the pardon of the Presidentof the United States. " He further claimed that there was no principle oflaw which would sanction the holding of him--a mere subordinate--guilty, for simply obeying, as literally as possible, the ordersof his superiors. 

He denied all the specific acts of cruelty alleged against him, such asmaltreating and killing prisoners with his own hands. The prisonerskilled for crossing the Dead Line, he claimed, should not be chargedagainst him, since they were simply punished for the violation of a knownorder which formed part of the discipline, he believed, of all militaryprisons. The statement that soldiers were given a furlough for killing aYankee prisoner, was declared to be "a mere idle, absurd camp rumor. "As to the lack of shelter, room and rations for so many prisoners, he claimed that the sole responsibility rested upon the ConfederateGovernment. There never were but two prisoners whipped by his order, and these were for sufficient cause. He asked the Court to considerfavorably two important items in his defense: first, that he had of hisown accord taken the drummer boys from the Stockade, and placed themwhere they could get purer air and better food. Second, that no propertytaken from prisoners was retained by him, but was turned over to thePrison Quartermaster. 

The Court, after due deliberation, declared the prisoner guilty on allthe charges and specifications save two unimportant ones, and sentencedhim to be hanged by the neck until dead, at such time and place as thePresident of the United States should direct. 

November 3 President Johnson approved of the sentence, and ordered MajorGeneral C. C. Augur to carry the same into effect on Friday, November 10, which was done. The prisoner made frantic appeals against the sentence;he wrote imploring letters to President Johnson, and lying ones to theNew York News, a Rebel paper. It is said that his wife attempted toconvey poison to him, that he might commit suicide and avoid the ignomyof being hanged. When all hope was gone he nerved himself up to meet hisfate, and died, as thousands of other scoundrels have, with calmness. His body was buried in the grounds of the Old Capitol Prison, alongsideof that of Azterodt, one of the accomplices in the assassination ofPresident Lincoln. 

CHAPTER LXXXII. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY--WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR ALL THE MISERY--AN EXAMINATIONOF THE FLIMSY EXCUSES MADE FOR THE REBELS--ONE DOCUMENT THAT CONVICTSTHEM--WHAT IS DESIRED. 

I have endeavored to tell the foregoing story as calmly, asdispassionately, as free from vituperation and prejudice as possible. How well I have succeeded the reader must judge. How difficult thismoderation has been at times only those know who, like myself, have seen, from day to day, the treason-sharpened fangs of Starvation and Diseasegnaw nearer and nearer to the hearts of well-beloved friends andcomrades. Of the sixty-three of my company comrades who entered prisonwith me, but eleven, or at most thirteen, emerged alive, and several ofthese have since died from the effects of what they suffered. Themortality in the other companies of our battalion was equally great, as it was also with the prisoners generally. Not less than twenty-fivethousand gallant, noble-hearted boys died around me between the dates ofmy capture and release. Nobler men than they never died for any cause. For the most part they were simple-minded, honest-hearted boys; thesterling products of our Northern home-life, and Northern Common Schools, and that grand stalwart Northern blood, the yeoman blood of sturdy middleclass freemen--the blood of the race which has conquered on every fieldsince the Roman Empire went down under its sinewy blows. They pratedlittle of honor, and knew nothing of "chivalry" except in its repulsivetravesty in the South. As citizens at home, no honest labor had beenregarded by them as too humble to be followed with manly pride in itssuccess; as soldiers in the field, they did their duty with a calmdefiance of danger and death, that the world has not seen equaled in thesix thousand years that men have followed the trade of war. In theprison their conduct was marked by the same unostentatious butunflinching heroism. Death stared them in the face constantly. Theycould read their own fate in that of the loathsome, unburied dead allaround them. Insolent enemies mocked their sufferings, and sneered attheir devotion to a Government which they asserted had abandoned them, but the simple faith, the ingrained honesty of these plain-mannered, plain-spoken boys rose superior to every trial. Brutus, the noblestRoman of them all, says in his grandest flight:

 Set honor in one eye and death in the other, And I will look on both indifferently. 

They did not say this: they did it. They never questioned their duty; norepinings, no murmurings against their Government escaped their lips, they took the dread fortunes brought to them as calmly, as unshrinkinglyas they had those in the field; they quailed not, nor wavered in theirfaith before the worst the Rebels could do. The finest epitaph everinscribed above a soldier's grave was that graven on the stone whichmarked the resting-place of the deathless three hundred who fell atThermopylae:

 Go, stranger, to Lacedaemon, -- And tell Sparta that we lie here in obedience to her laws. 

They who lie in the shallow graves of Andersonville, Belle Isle, Florenceand Salisbury, lie there in obedience to the precepts and maximsinculcated into their minds in the churches and Common Schools of theNorth; precepts which impressed upon them the duty of manliness and honorin all the relations and exigencies of life; not the "chivalric" prate oftheir enemies, but the calm steadfastness which endureth to the end. Thehighest tribute that can be paid them is to say they did full credit totheir teachings, and they died as every American should when duty bidshim. No richer heritage was ever bequeathed to posterity. 

It was in the year 1864, and the first three months of 1865 that thesetwenty-five thousand youths mere cruelly and needlessly done to death. In these fatal fifteen months more young men than to-day form the pride, the hope, and the vigor of any one of our leading Cities, more than atthe beginning of the war were found in either of several States in theNation, were sent to their graves, "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown, "victims of the most barbarous and unnecessary cruelty recorded since theDark Ages. Barbarous, because the wit of man has not yet devised a moresavage method of destroying fellow-beings than by exposure andstarvation; unnecessary, because the destruction of these had not, andcould not have the slightest effect upon the result of the struggle. The Rebel leaders have acknowledged that they knew the fate of theConfederacy was sealed when the campaign of 1864 opened with the Northdisplaying an unflinching determination to prosecute the war to asuccessful conclusion. All that they could hope for after that was somefortuitous accident, or unexpected foreign recognition that would givethem peace with victory. The prisoners were non-important factors in themilitary problem. Had they all been turned loose as soon as captured, their efforts would not have hastened the Confederacy's fate a singleday. 

As to the responsibility for this monstrous cataclysm of human misery anddeath: That the great mass of the Southern people approved of theseoutrages, or even knew of them, I do not, for an instant, believe. Theyare as little capable of countenancing such a thing as any people in theworld. But the crowning blemish of Southern society has ever been thedumb acquiescence of the many respectable, well-disposed, right-thinkingpeople in the acts of the turbulent and unscrupulous few. From thisdireful spring has flowed an Iliad of unnumbered woes, not only to thatsection but to our common country. It was this that kept the Southvibrating between patriotism and treason during the revolution, so thatit cost more lives and treasure to maintain the struggle there than inall the rest of the country. It was this that threatened thedismemberment of the Union in 1832. It was this that aggravated andenvenomed every wrong growing out of Slavery; that outraged liberty, debauched citizenship, plundered the mails, gagged the press, stiffledspeech, made opinion a crime, polluted the free soil of God with theunwilling step of the bondman, and at last crowned three-quarters of acentury of this unparalleled iniquity by dragging eleven millions ofpeople into a war from which their souls revolted, and against which theyhad declared by overwhelming majorities in every State except SouthCarolina, where the people had no voice. It may puzzle some tounderstand how a relatively small band of political desperados in eachState could accomplish such a momentous wrong; that they did do it, noone conversant with our history will deny, and that they--insignificantas they were in numbers, in abilities, in character, in everything savecapacity and indomitable energy in mischief--could achieve such giganticwrongs in direct opposition to the better sense of their communities is afearful demonstration of the defects of the constitution of Southernsociety. 

Men capable of doing all that the Secession leaders were guilty of--bothbefore and during the war--were quite capable of revengefully destroyingtwenty-five thousand of their enemies by the most hideous means at theircommand. That they did so set about destroying their enemies, wilfully, maliciously, and with malice prepense and aforethought, is susceptible ofproof as conclusive as that which in a criminal court sends murderers tothe gallows. 

Let us examine some of these proofs:

1. The terrible mortality at Andersonville and elsewhere was a matter ofas much notoriety throughout the Southern Confederacy as the militaryoperations of Lee and Johnson. No intelligent man--much less the Rebelleaders--was ignorant of it nor of its calamitous proportions. 

2. Had the Rebel leaders within a reasonable time after this matterbecame notorious made some show of inquiring into and alleviating thedeadly misery, there might be some excuse for them on the ground of lackof information, and the plea that they did as well as they could wouldhave some validity. But this state of affairs was allowed to continueover a year--in fact until the downfall of the Confederacy--without ahand being raised to mitigate the horrors of those places--without evenan inquiry being made as to whether they were mitigable or not. Stillworse: every month saw the horrors thicken, and the condition of theprisoners become more wretched. 

The suffering in May, 1864, was more terrible than in April; June showeda frightful increase over May, while words fail to paint the horrors ofJuly and August, and so the wretchedness waxed until the end, in April, 1865. 

3. The main causes of suffering and death were so obviously preventiblethat the Rebel leaders could not have been ignorant of the ease withwhich a remedy could be applied. These main causes were three in number:

a. Improper and insufficient food. B. Unheard-of crowding together. C. Utter lack of shelter. 

It is difficult to say which of these three was the most deadly. Let usadmit, for the sake of argument, that it was impossible for the Rebels tosupply sufficient and proper food. This admission, I know, will notstand for an instant in the face of the revelations made by Sherman'sMarch to the Sea; and through the Carolinas, but let that pass, that wemay consider more easily demonstrable facts connected with the next twopropositions, the first of which is as to the crowding together. Wasland so scarce in the Southern Confederacy that no more than sixteenacres could be spared for the use of thirty-five thousand prisoners?The State of Georgia has a population of less than one-sixth that of NewYork, scattered over a territory one-quarter greater than that State's, and yet a pitiful little tract--less than the corn-patch "clearing" ofthe laziest "cracker" in the State--was all that could be allotted to theuse of three-and-a-half times ten thousand young men! The averagepopulation of the State does not exceed sixteen to the square mile, yetAndersonville was peopled at the rate of one million four hundredthousand to the square mile. With millions of acres of unsettled, useless, worthless pine barrens all around them, the prisoners werewedged together so closely that there was scarcely room to lie down atnight, and a few had space enough to have served as a grave. This, too, in a country where the land was of so little worth that much of it hadnever been entered from the Government. 

Then, as to shelter and fire: Each of the prisons was situated in theheart of a primeval forest, from which the first trees that had ever beencut were those used in building the pens. Within a gun-shot of theperishing men was an abundance of lumber and wood to have built every manin prison a warm, comfortable hut, and enough fuel to supply all hiswants. Supposing even, that the Rebels did not have the labor at hand toconvert these forests into building material and fuel, the prisonersthemselves would have gladly undertaken the work, as a means of promotingtheir own comfort, and for occupation and exercise. No tools would havebeen too poor and clumsy for them to work with. When logs wereoccasionally found or brought into prison, men tore them to pieces almostwith their naked fingers. Every prisoner will bear me out in theassertion that there was probably not a root as large as a bit ofclothes-line in all the ground covered by the prisons, that eluded thefaithfully eager search of freezing men for fuel. What else thandeliberate design can account for this systematic withholding from theprisoners of that which was so essential to their existence, and which itwas so easy to give them?

This much for the circumstantial evidence connecting the Rebelauthorities with the premeditated plan for destroying the prisoners. Let us examine the direct evidence:

The first feature is the assignment to the command of the prisons of"General" John H. Winder, the confidential friend of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and a man so unscrupulous, cruel and bloody-thirsty that at the time ofhis appointment he was the most hated and feared man in the SouthernConfederacy. His odious administration of the odious office of ProvostMarshal General showed him to be fittest of tools for their purpose. Their selection--considering the end in view, was eminently wise. BaronHaynau was made eternally infamous by a fraction of the wanton crueltieswhich load the memory of Winder. But it can be said in extenuation ofHaynau's offenses that he was a brave, skilful and energetic soldier, whooverthrew on the field the enemies he maltreated. If Winder, at any timeduring the war, was nearer the front than Richmond, history does notmention it. Haynau was the bastard son of a German Elector and of thedaughter of a village, druggist. Winder was the son of a shamaristocrat, whose cowardice and incompetence in the war of 1812 gaveWashington into the hands of the British ravagers. 

It is sufficient indication of this man's character that he could lookunmoved upon the terrible suffering that prevailed in Andersonville inJune, July, and August; that he could see three thousand men die eachmonth in the most horrible manner, without lifting a finger in any way toassist them; that he could call attention in a self-boastful way to thefact that "I am killing off more Yankees than twenty regiments in Lee'sArmy, " and that he could respond to the suggestions of the horror-struckvisiting Inspector that the prisoners be given at least more room, withthe assertion that he intended to leave matters just as they were--theoperations of death would soon thin out the crowd so that the survivorswould have sufficient room. 

It was Winder who issued this order to the Commander of the Artillery:

ORDER No. 13. 

 HEADQUARTERS MILITARY PRISON, ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. , July 27, 1864. 

The officers on duty and in charge of the Battery of Florida Artillery atthe time will, upon receiving notice that the enemy has approached withinseven miles of this post, open upon the Stockade with grapeshot, withoutreference to the situation beyond these lines of defense. 

 JOHN H. WINDER, Brigadier General Commanding. 

Diabolical is the only word that will come at all near fitlycharacterizing such an infamous order. What must have been the nature ofa man who would calmly order twenty-five guns to be opened with grape andcanister at two hundred yards range, upon a mass of thirty thousandprisoners, mostly sick and dying! All this, rather than suffer them tobe rescued by their friends. Can there be any terms of reprobationsufficiently strong to properly denounce so malignant a monster? Historyhas no parallel to him, save among the blood-reveling kings of Dahomey, or those sanguinary Asiatic chieftains who built pyramids of humanskulls, and paved roads with men's bones. How a man bred an Americancame to display such a Timour-like thirst for human life, such anOriental contempt for the sufferings of others, is one of the mysteriesthat perplexes me the more I study it. 

If the Rebel leaders who appointed this man, to whom he reported direct, without intervention of superior officers, and who were fully informed ofall his acts through other sources than himself, were not responsible forhim, who in Heaven's name was? How can there be a possibility that theywere not cognizant and approving of his acts?

The Rebels have attempted but one defense to the terrible charges againstthem, and that is, that our Government persistently refused to exchange, preferring to let its men rot in prison, to yielding up the Rebels itheld. This is so utterly false as to be absurd. Our Government madeoverture after overture for exchange to the Rebels, and offered to yieldmany of the points of difference. But it could not, with the leastconsideration for its own honor, yield up the negro soldiers and theirofficers to the unrestrained brutality of the Rebel authorities, norcould it, consistent with military prudence, parole the one hundredthousand well-fed, well-clothed, able-bodied Rebels held by it asprisoners, and let them appear inside of a week in front of Grant orSherman. Until it would agree to do this the Rebels would not agree toexchange, and the only motive--save revenge--which could have inspiredthe Rebel maltreatment of the prisoners, was the expectation of raisingsuch a clamor in the North as would force the Government to consent to adisadvantageous exchange, and to give back to the Confederacy, at itsmost critical period one hundred thousand fresh, able-bodied soldiers. It was for this purpose, probably, that our Government and the SanitaryCommission were refused all permission to send us food and clothing. For my part, and I know I echo the feelings of ninety-nine out of everyhundred of my comrades, I would rather have staid in prison till Irotted, than that our Government should have yielded to the degradingdemands of insolent Rebels. 

There is one document in the possession of the Government which seems tome to be unanswerable proof, both of the settled policy of the RichmondGovernment towards the Union prisoners, and of the relative merits ofNorthern and Southern treatment of captives. The document is a letterreading as follows:

 CITY POINT, Va. , March 17, 1863. 

SIR:--A flag-of-truce boat has arrived with three hundred and fiftypolitical prisoners, General Barrow and several other prominent men amongthem. 

I wish you to send me on four o'clock Wednesday morning, all the militaryprisoners (except officers), and all the political prisoners you have. If any of the political prisoners have on hand proof enough to convictthem of being spies, or of having committed other offenses which shouldsubject them to punishment, so state opposite their names. Also, statewhether you think, under all the circumstances, they should be released. The arrangement I have made works largely in our favor. WE GET RID OF ASET OF MISERABLE WRETCHES, AND RECEIVE SOME OF THE BEST MATERIAL I EVERSAW. 

Tell Captain Turner to put down on the list of political prisoners thenames of Edward P. Eggling, and Eugenia Hammermister. The President isanxious that they should get off. They are here now. This, of course, is between ourselves. If you have any political prisoners whom you cansend off safely to keep her company, I would like you to send her. 

Two hundred and odd more political prisoners are on their way. 

I would be more full in my communication if I had time. Yours truly, ROBERT OULD, Commissioner of Exchange. 

To Brigadier general John H. Winder. 

But, supposing that our Government, for good military reasons, or for noreason at all, declined to exchange prisoners, what possible excuse isthat for slaughtering them by exquisite tortures? Every Government hasap unquestioned right to decline exchanging when its military policysuggests such a course; and such declination conveys no right whatever tothe enemy to slay those prisoners, either outright with the edge of thesword, or more slowly by inhuman treatment. The Rebels' attempts tojustify their conduct, by the claim that our Government refused to accedeto their wishes in a certain respect, is too preposterous to be made orlistened to by intelligent men. 

The whole affair is simply inexcusable, and stands out a foul blot on thememory of every Rebel in high place in the Confederate Government. 

"Vengeance is mine, " saith the Lord, and by Him must this great crime beavenged, if it ever is avenged. It certainly transcends all human power. I have seen little indication of any Divine interposition to mete out, atleast on this earth, adequate punishment to those who were the principalagents in that iniquity. Howell Cobb died as peacefully in his bed asany Christian in the land, and with as few apparent twinges of remorse asif he had spent his life in good deeds and prayer. The arch-fiend Winderdied in equal tranquility, murmuring some cheerful hope as to his soul'sfuture. Not one of the ghosts of his hunger-slain hovered around toembitter his dying moments, as he had theirs. Jefferson Davis "stilllives, a prosperous gentleman, " the idol of a large circle of adherents, the recipient of real estate favors from elderly females of morbidsympathies, and a man whose mouth is full of plaints of his wrongs, and misappreciation. The rest of the leading conspirators have eitherdeparted this life in the odor of sanctity, surrounded by sorrowingfriends, or are gliding serenely down the mellow autumnal vale of abenign old age. 

Only Wirz--small, insignificant, miserable Wirz, the underling, the tool, the servile, brainless, little fetcher-and-carrier of these men, waspunished--was hanged, and upon the narrow shoulders of this pitifulscapegoat was packed the entire sin of Jefferson Davis and his crew. What a farce!

A petty little Captain made to expiate the crimes of Generals, CabinetOfficers, and a President. How absurd!

But I do not ask for vengeance. I do not ask for retribution for one ofthose thousands of dead comrades, the glitter of whose sightless eyeswill follow me through life. I do not desire even justice on the stillliving authors and accomplices in the deep damnation of their taking off. I simply ask that the great sacrifices of my dead comrades shall not besuffered to pass unregarded to irrevocable oblivion; that the example oftheir heroic self-abnegation shall not be lost, but the lesson it teachesbe preserved and inculcated into the minds of their fellow-countrymen, that future generations may profit by it, and others be as ready to diefor right and honor and good government as they were. And it seems to methat if we are to appreciate their virtues, we must loathe and hold up toopprobrium those evil men whose malignity made all their sacrificesnecessary. I cannot understand what good self-sacrifice and heroicexample are to serve in this world, if they are to be followed by such amaudlin confusion of ideas as now threatens to obliterate all distinctionbetween the men who fought and died for the Right and those who resistedthem for the Wrong.