where we had to wait for some time. While here, a
fierce-looking, black-whiskered man, who, I afterwards learned, was
Chillis, the commissary of the prison, came in, and said:

"Bridge burners, are they! They ought to be hung, every man of them;
and so ought every man that does anything against the Confederacy."
Had he said _for_, I would have agreed with him heartily.

Soon the guide returned, and ordered us to be conducted up stairs. Up
we went, passing by a room filled with a howling and yelling
multitude, who made such an outrageous racket that I was compelled to
put my hands to my ears. As we came in view, a score of voices
screamed with all the energy their lungs could give:

"Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" The same exclamation greeted every new
arrival.

We were taken into the office and searched, to see if we possessed
anything contraband, or, in plainer terms, anything they could make
useful to themselves. They took some nice pocket knives from the
Tennesseeans, which they had contrived to keep secreted till now. When
it came my turn, I managed to slip a large knife, that I had obtained
at Atlanta, up my sleeve, and by carefully turning my arm when they
felt for concealed weapons, succeeded in keeping it out of the way.

The examination over, I thought they were going to put us into the
miniature mad-house we had just passed; and they did not do much
better, for they put us into a stall beside it. I call it a stall, for
the word describes it most fully. It was one of a range, partitioned
off from the large room in which were the noisy miscreants, and from
each other by loose plank, with cracks wide enough to let the wind
circulate freely through them. Most of the windows of the large room
were out, which greatly increased the cold. Our stall was only eight
or nine feet wide, and perhaps sixteen in length. It was bare of any
furniture--not even having a chair, or any means of making a fire.

In this cheerless place our party, six in number, and nine
Tennesseeans, were confined during the months of December and January!

The first day of our imprisonment here, our spirits sank lower than
they had ever done before. All our bright hopes were dashed to the
ground, and there seemed every reason to believe that we were doomed
to this dreary abode for the remaining term of the war, even if we
escaped sharing with our murdered friends the horrors of a Southern
scaffold. It was too disheartening for philosophy, and that