unchanged clothing, and their grim humor under even that
trial. Generals Lee and Ewell--riding through a quiet road in deep
consultation, followed by members of their staff--came suddenly upon a
North Carolinian at the roadside. Nude to the waist, and careless of
the august presences near, the soldier paid attention only to the dingy
shirt he held over the smoke of some smoldering brush. The generals
past, an aide spurred up to the toilet-making vet, and queried sharply:

"Didn't you see the generals, sir? What in thunder are you doing?"

"Skirmishin'!" drawled the unmoved warrior--"An' I ent takin' no
pris'ners, nuther!"

After this lapse of time--when retrospect shows but the gloom and
sorrow which shadowed the dark "days of storm and stress," while none
of the excitement and tension in them remains--it may seem
incomprehensible that the South could laugh in song, while she suffered
and fought and starved. Stranger still must it be to know that many a
merry peal rang through the barred windows of the fortress-prisons of
the North. Yet, many a one of the exchanged captives brought back a
rollicking "prison glee;" and some sing, even to-day, the legend of
"Fort Delaware, Del."

The "Prison Wails" of Thomas F. Roche, a Marylander long captive, is a
close and clever parody on General Lytell's "I am dying, Egypt," which
came through the lines and won warm admirers South. It describes prison
discipline, diet and dirt, with keen point and broad grin. From its
opening lines:

"I am busted, mother--busted!
Gone th' last unhappy check;
And th' infernal sutlers' prices
Make my pocket-book a wreck!--"

to the human, piteous plaint that ends it:

"Ah! Once more, among the lucky,
Let thy hopeful buy and swell;
Bankers and rich brokers aid thee!
Shell! sweet mother mine, Oh! shell!--"

the original is closely followed and equally distorted.

But strangest, amid all strange humors of the war, was that which
echoed laughter over the leaguered walls of scarred, starving,
desperate Vicksburg! No siege in all history tells of greater peril and
suffering, borne with wondrous endurance and heroism, by men and women.
It is a story of privation unparalleled, met by fortitude and calm
acceptance which recall the early martyrdoms for faith! And, indeed,
love of country grew to be a religion, especially with the women of the
South, though happily none proved it by stress so dire as those of h