u have left them to take, anyhow," said a voice,--and
"That's so," chorused the crowd; and the whistle sounding, the Captain,
whose reign was over, departed, hard-hit and growling, but left, so to
speak, his sting behind him: for the last of his speech had one terrible
merit,--it was true.

The prisoners, over a thousand strong, were formed in line and ordered
to march. As they tramped along the dusty road, they strained their
eyes, eagerly, but furtively, for the first show of their prison. Seeing
tents on the left, there was a little stir among them, but that proved
to be a Rebel camp; then some one spied heights topped with cannon, and
"Now," said they, "we are close upon it," and then stopped short for
wonder, for here the road ended, ran butt against the wall of a huge
roofless inclosure, made of squared pines set perpendicularly and close
together in the ground.

"Is it a pen?" asked one, doubtfully.

"Yes, yours," retorted one of the guard, with a grin,--"the Stockade
Prison."

The word ran down the line like a shiver, and the men stood mute, eying
each other doubtfully. And now, if I could, I would get at your hearts,
you who read this, and you should not read mistily, and hold the story
at loose ends as it were, but feel by the answering throb within
yourselves what thoughts gnawed at the hearts of these men under their
brave show of indifference: for though these be facts, facts written are
disembodied, and, like spirits, have no power to speak to you, unless
you give them the voice of your sympathy; and without that, I question
which touches you most deeply, a thousand rats following the Pied Piper
of Hamelin, and wondering, as he neared the wharves, where the Deuse
they were going, or the thousand Union soldiers standing stunned before
a gate from which should have wailed forth, as they filed through,
"_Leave all hope behind!_"

They were hardly in, when there was a scramble, and a cry of "Rations!"
and came lumbering a train of wagons, bringing the day's supplies. There
were at this time under torture twenty-eight thousand prisoners,--more
than the population of Hartford; and as the Southern Confederacy, a
Christian association, and conducting itself with many appeals to
Christian principle, believes the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb,
and so shears the Yankees as close as possible, these men had all been
formally fleeced of such worldly gear as blankets, money, and extra
clothing. Some further sh