ions, and money that were sent to me by kind friends
residing in Kentucky and Maryland I think that I could not have lived to
witness the end of the war. There was not enough nutriment in the daily
ration to support vigorous health, and it was barely sufficient to
sustain life. I believe that a few of the prisoners succumbed to disease
and died because they had an insufficiency of nourishing food. Bones
were picked from ditches, if perchance there might be upon them a morsel
of meat. I was begged for bread, when I was hungry for the want of it.
All the rats were eaten that could be caught in traps ingeniously
contrived. When prejudice is overcome by gnawing hunger, a fat rat
makes good eating, as I know from actual and enjoyable mastication.

For a time we were permitted to obtain the news of the outside world
through the New York _World_ and the Baltimore _Gazette_, but these were
suppressed; and then we had to depend upon a little Sandusky sheet and
the Baltimore _American_, which vilified the South and claimed for every
battle a Union victory.

How did we while the time away? Well, we organized a minstrel band,
singing clubs, and debating societies; we had occasional lectures and
exchanged books in a so-called reading room; we had two rival base-ball
teams, and we played the indoor games of chess, checkers, cards, and
dominoes. I spent much time in reading the Bible, besides some of
Scott's novels and the charming story of Picciola.

On Sunday there were Bible classes, and sometimes sermons by men who had
gone from the pulpit into the army. Among them were a Methodist colonel
from Missouri, a Baptist colonel from Mississippi, and a Baptist
captain from Virginia. At one time evangelistic services were held in a
lower room of block No. 5, and a number of converts confessed Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour, and declared their denominational
preference. Those who decided to be Baptists were permitted, under
guard, to go out to the shore and were baptized in the bay by Captain
Littleberry Allen, of Caroline county, Virginia; the rest could find
within the walls as much water as they considered necessary for the
ordinance.

Block No. 6 was set apart for a hospital, into which a prisoner might go
in case of sickness. It was superintended by a Federal surgeon, but a
large part of the prescribing was done by Confederate officers who had
been practicing physicians. The nursing was performed by the patients'
more intimate f