who was well enough to be walking about. Even our visitors were rather ashamed of this performance, and invented an absurd story that Bush had tried to escape,—a man with a shattered arm trying to escape from the only chance of saving it!]

[Journal resumed.] It seems that an opportunity may turn up for sending this little book off to the North by a man who will shortly get his parole, and I think will undertake to smuggle it through. These jottings have been almost my only resource to pass away the leaden hours. With no companion to whom I can open my soul, I must soliloquize, if only to convince myself that I have not yet sunk to the level of my surroundings.

Saturday, September 20.—Six weeks to-day since the fight in which we became dead to the world. “Hope springs eternal,” etc. If it didn’t, how many would turn their faces to the wall! One man got his everlasting furlough the other day, just at supper time; but they pulled the sheet over his face and went on with the bread and molasses; and, when that was over, down he went to the dead-house.

This, in my opinion, is for the country the very moment of convulsion and travail, out of which some new state of things,—the commencement of some new era,—for better or for worse, will surely come. “When the pain is sorest, the child is born; and the night is darkest before the dawn of the day of the Lord at hand.” But at this critical moment to be walled up alive, where only faint echoes and uncertain sounds from the great fields reach us,—the fields where our fellow-soldiers are playing out the great game of the age is,—a chance of war, and nothing to complain of while we still live. A great battle has been in Maryland, and, although they make it out that we were worsted, yet from signs and tokens we draw our own inferences. First and greatest, the women haven’t been up to crow victory over the Yankee prisoners, ergo the first despatch did not announce a success; the doctors have said nothing, and last night Dr. Hay, with a dozen others and all the dressers that could be spared, left for Maryland. Charley, the nigger, yesterday reported that the folks in town felt very bad about it. Reports fly about of fifty thousand killed and wounded on both sides; and, as they can’t know ours, theirs must have been tremendous to have started such reports. (Here come the women to the menagerie.) At all events, it’s such a victory as they can’t stand a repetition of; and now, if the North will pour in reinforcements, there may be a glimmer of daylight for the cause, if not for me.

A man has come into this room, wounded at Port Republic, First Sergeant Seventh Ohio, the most awful specimen of emaciation that I ever saw or would have believed consistent with the vital spark. The articulation of each joint, covered only by the tense polished skin, is as distinct as in a skeleton.

Another horror: a rebel deserter, who was put in with the Yankees in order to be under guard, has just been sheared, on account of one of the plagues of Egypt; and his head was a sight to dream of, not to tell. He had been living in the woods since he deserted, was immediately taken down with typhoid fever, and I thought wanted to die.

The room now consists as follows, beginning with my next neighbor: Corporal James Shipp, known as Jimmy, the pet of the room, doctors and nurses inclusive: a nice, simple-hearted boy of seventeen, brave and good; shot in shoulder, scapula taken out; recovering. Private Smith, Forty-sixth Pennsylvania: good fellow, apparently; has taken laudanum enough to float a ship, and seems to be getting fat on it.

The skeleton sergeant comes next. He keeps a journal, and his wound drives me from the room, whenever opened.

The deserter and company. He wouldn’t have needed John Phœnix’s tape-worm, in order to use the editorial “we.”

A bragging squirt of a Georgian, who got scratched in the finger in Maryland, and marched all the way here to save his precious hide and boast of the Yankees he had killed.

George Peet, Fifth Ohio: a good young fellow; lost his foot the other day, after six weeks trying to save it.

Henry Shaw, One Hundred and Second New York: a little, white-headed Harlemite, a little conceited; talks a little better English than the rest of them; shot in back; recovering.

Arthur Jordan, Tenth Maine: obliging, pleasant, nice fellow; had the measles, and was sent to the “measly ward,” from which he has just made his escape on his own hook, returning here at the risk of being put in the guard-house.

Sergeant Henry Holloway, Fifth Connecticut: the only one with whom I can fraternize at all; a railroad man, engine driver, etc., infected with the insubordinate ideas natural to his regiment; otherwise, a good fellow.

Captain ——, —— ——, selfishness incarnate. It takes all sorts of men to make up a world, but let us hope that it takes few such as he.

Thursday, September 25.—Great news in yesterday’s paper. It seems Pope’s officers have been paroled. That is a glimmer of daylight, and looks as if the winter might not be passed in shop ward No. 7, or the Libby. General Prince is courteously alluded to as “the ringleader of the gang.” For pure malignity of venom, these Richmond editors would beat even the witches’ toad that was stewed after his month’s nap under the stone.

Sunday, 28th.—Away with visions of home and ease! Wilder Dwight has been killed, and I am Major, I suppose.... Now to play the man and be prepared to go to the majority in either sense, when God’s will is.

Just had a visit from Joshua Munroe,—and a cheering visit, indeed,—a descendant of Israel Munroe of Lexington fight, and here an Israelite among the Philistines. Rebel soldier, just leaving for his regiment, shakes hands all round with our men, who enjoin him to take care of himself. And how soon these men may be putting daylight through each other! Note: I have experienced from rebel privates almost uniform kindness, good-fellowship, camaraderie; they treat one as fellow-soldier. And as for our men, they fraternize as though the strawberry mark of brotherhood was on every arm. All the insult, all the bitterness and ill-treatment, have come from officers and citizens of high position in society, and from the women, whose envenomed tongues are let loose upon the wounded prisoner without mercy. This space [referring to the space in the diary under the printed date of Saturday, May 24] is the date of our midnight fight on the dark road; and this [Sunday 25] of our fight and flight to the Potomac, when hell broke loose in Winchester town; and this Sunday is just such another, cool and bright; and this morning [Monday, May 26] A, B, E, and K, were left on picket at the fence and in woods, with a section of Cothran, under Lieutenant Peabody. That was the work that tried our souls. Ned and Dick, brave fellows, both gone before. “We a little longer wait, but how little who can know!”

Two men have died on this floor within the last twelve hours,—the old man Carter with the consumption, and the lieutenant with the typhoid, the former last night and the latter just now. This afternoon [Wednesday, May 28], we crossed the river; and how good camp was!

Monday, October 6.—Got letters from home last night, through Jim Savage, who still lives,—God be praised!—though with one leg off, and a shattered shoulder. Add to that that we are promised the parole of the yard; add to that orders expected for Richmond in a few days. I’ll bet my knapsack will be packed when the assembly beats. However, we’ll not count this chicken before he chips the shell, as old —— has tried to addle the egg all he could.

Tuesday, October 7.—One chicken incubated and made his appearance. Hay, yesterday afternoon, in the