thought most appropriate that I
should be the Ghost! Every morning for some weeks on the empty first
floor we read and rehearsed, and really made fine progress. But when we
got ready to produce in theatric style, with slight omissions, the first
act, the rebels seemed suspicious of some ulterior design. They refused
to furnish a sword for Hamlet, a halberd for Marcellus, muskets for
Bernardo and Francisco, a calico gown for the queen, or even a white
shirt for the Ghost. This was discouraging. When the lovely queen-mother
Gertrude appealed to her son--

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,--

he answered, "I swear I can't do it!" One November morning, as we were
rehearsing and shivering on the windy first floor, he ejaculated with
some emphasis, and with ungentle expletives not found in the original
text,

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold;

"I move, Colonel, that we 'bust up' this theatre." So the "legitimate
drama" vanished from Danville.

About this time my copy of the Greek New Testament was stolen from me,
an instance, perhaps, of piety run mad.

A week or two before this, the lower room, in which I then lodged,
containing about a hundred and seventy officers, was getting into such a
condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting to see what measures
could be adopted to promote comfort and decency. I was not the senior in
rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized to issue
orders. Some sort of government must be instituted at once. Nearly all
recognized the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline. A
committee was appointed consisting of myself, Major John W. Byron, 88th
N. Y., and another officer whose name escapes me, to draw up rules and
regulations. We presented the following:

RULES UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED IN THE LOWER ROOM,
DANVILLE, VA., PRISON, OCT. 26, 1864:

1. The room shall be thoroughly policed (swept, etc.) four times
each day by the messes in succession; viz., at sunrise and
sunset, and immediately after breakfast and dinner.

2. There shall be no washing in this room.

3. No emptying slops into spittoons.

4. No washing in the soup buckets or water buckets.

5. No shaking of clothes or blankets in this room.

6. No cooking inside the stoves.

7. No loitering in the yard to the inconvenience of others.

8. No person shall be evidently filthy or infested with vermin.

9. No indecent,