t a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.

A well-grounded conviction prevailed among the prisoners that the
Confederate government was anxious to secure an exchange of prisoners,
but that the Federal government would not consent. The reason was
evident enough. The Confederate prisoners in the North, as a rule, were
fit for military duty; the Union prisoners in the South were physically
unfit. A general exchange would have placed at once, say, more than
forty thousand fresh soldiers in the rebel ranks, but very few in ours.
Conscription for military service had been tried in the North with
results so bitter that it seemed unwise to attempt it again. Better let
the unfortunates in southern prisons perish in silence--that appeared
the wisest policy. But to us prisoners it appeared a mistake and gross
neglect of duty. Between our keen sense of the wrong in allowing us to
starve, and our love for Lincoln and the Union, there was a struggle.
Our patriotism was put to the test on the day of the Presidential
election, Tuesday, November 8th. Discouraging as was the outlook for us
personally, we had confidence in the government and in the justice of
our cause. Pains was taken to obtain a full and fair vote in the
officers' prison. There were two hundred seventy-six for Lincoln;
ninety-one for McClellan. Under the circumstances the result was
satisfactory.

Very earnest, if not acrimonious, were the discussions that immediately
preceded and followed. Some of us realized their importance, not so much
in arriving at a correct decision on the questions at issue, as in
preventing mental stagnation likely to result in imbecility if not
actual idiocy. By the stimulus of employment of some kind we must fight
against the apathy, the hopeless loss of will power, into which several
of our comrades seemed sinking. Mrs. Browning well says:

Get leave to work
In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.
... Get work; get work;
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get!

Some of us started historical debates, and new views were presented
which furnished both amusement and instruction. One colonel, more
redoubtable in battle than in dialectics, who had been shot through from
breast to back, gravely informed us that the geometer Euclid was an
early English writer! A kindly visitor, Dr. Holbrook, made me a present
of Hi