our arrival was about three
hundred and twenty; the number of non-commissioned officers and privates
was suddenly increased from about two thousand to some eight thousand.
Among these were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, and other
government employees. Albert D. Richardson, then well-known as a
correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, whose romantic marriage to Abby
Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and whose tragic death created a sensation in
the newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner there for several
months. He told us he had found Salisbury a comfortable place. It
immediately ceased to be such.

There stood the empty log houses. We besought the rebel commandant,
Major Gee, to allow us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he
would permit it on condition that we should sign a stringent parole,
binding us on our honor not to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a
preposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly
cut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such
a pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter.
I asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way
relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."--"Well, where's the reciprocity?" I
demanded; "what are you giving up?"--"Well," he replied, "if you don't
choose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal
officers have not objected to signing it." He showed us the signature of
Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had been colonel of the 69th New York, was
captured at the first battle of Bull Run, was promoted to be brigadier,
and who raised the so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer,
Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, now called a meeting of the
field officers, and submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole,
and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves free to escape if we
can, and so share the privations of our enlisted men, who have no bed
but the ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke strongly against
making any promise. We voted almost unanimously against it.

General Hayes and others then urged upon the commandant the absurdity
and meanness of requiring it. It was clear to us and must have been so
to him that it was for his interest to separate the three or four
hundred officers from the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey our
orders. He finally consented that we should occupy the houses without
imposing any c