upplies as I had proposed, and had so
informed Smith, who approved of the plan; that until such a plan should
be put in operation he would furnish me from his own table. He said to
me very privately that he was greatly moved by what I had said the day
before. "But," he added, "I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee
that the Confederacy can't last very long; certainly not a year. I give
it till next September; and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to
stand well with you officers." At my suggestion he gave a few other
prisoners food and money.

In a few days I was again called to headquarters to meet a Mr. Jordan,
who, through Ficklin's efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son,
Henry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North Carolina Regiment, was at
that time a prisoner at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to
make out a list of articles which he wished my relatives to send to his
son. In a day or two he did so. I likewise made out a statement of my
immediate wants, as follows:

Wood for cooking;
Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon;
Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar;
Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses;
Or any other substantial food.

I asked Jordan to send me those things _at once_. He answered after some
delay that he would do so immediately on receiving an acknowledgment
from his son that my friends had furnished him what he wanted; and he
would await such a message! As my relatives were in Massachusetts and
Connecticut, it would take considerable time for them to negotiate with
the prison commandant and other parties in Ohio and have the
stipulations distinctly understood and carried into effect there.
Besides, there were likely to be provoking delays in communicating by
mail between the north and the south, and it might be a month or six
weeks before he got assurances from his son; by which time I should
probably be in a better world than Danville, and in no need of wood,
food, or table-ware. I wrote him to that effect, and requested him to
make haste, but received no reply.

My friend Mr. Ficklin came to the rescue. As a pretext to deceive, if
need were, the prison authorities, and furnish to them and others a
sufficient reason for bringing me supplies, he pretended that he had a
friend, a Confederate prisoner of war at Camp Douglas near Chicago, and
that Colonel Sprague's friends had been exceedingly kind to him,
ministering most liberally to his wants! The name o