corners to
sweep down the crowd, should an outbreak occur. This we had
thought of for some time, and a plan of action was decided
upon. At a given signal all within the enclosure were to
make a break for that part of the fence nearest them, and
then scatter, each one for himself. Of course, some would
probably be killed, but it was hoped most would escape
before the guards could load and fire a second time. This
plot, which was to have been carried out at midnight, was
discovered the previous afternoon. The inside guard,
separating the enlisted-men from the officers, had become
more vigilant, and the only means of communication was to
attach a note to a stone and throw it across. This an
officer attempted. The note fell short; the sentry picked it
up, called the corporal of the guard, who took it to the
officer of the guard, and in less than five minutes the
whole arrangement was known. Two hours afterward we were
formed in line and learned that we were to change our
quarters. We had then been in Salisbury twenty days. Before
we left one of our mess found and brought away a bound copy
of _Harper's Magazine_. It proved a boon to us, as it served
for a pillow for one of us at night, and was being read by
some one from dawn until night, until we had all read it
through, when we traded it off for a volume of the _Portland
Transcript_.

"'We were packed in box cars and started North. The next
morning we arrived at Danville and were confined in a
tobacco warehouse, built of brick and about eighty feet
long, forty wide, and three stories high. When we first
entered the prison the ration was fair in quantity. We had
from twelve to sixteen ounces of corn-bread, and from two to
four ounces of beef or a cup of pea-soup, but never beef and
soup the same day. True, the soup would have an abundance of
worms floating about in it, but these we would skim off, and
trying to forget we had seen them, eat with a relish. Hunger
will drive one to eat almost anything, as we learned from
bitter experience. About the 1st of November the soup and
beef ration began to decrease, and from the middle of the
month to the 20th of February, when I was paroled, not a
ration of meat or soup was issued. Nothing but corn-bread,
made from unbolted meal, an