taken
prisoners were exchanged on parole. The New York came about the middle
of the month, bringing six hundred. Many said that their wounds had been
slight, but that amputation had been performed with the assurance from
the Rebels that they would fix them so that they would never fight any
more. I think that these were exceptional victims of cruelty, for the
almost universal testimony of our soldiers was that the surgeons were
their best friends at the South. They would insist upon the necessity of
more food being given to their patients, and remonstrate with the Rebel
authorities,--unfortunately without success.

One of the officers who came at this time was Lieutenant F----,
belonging to a New York regiment. He had lost a limb, and remained a few
weeks in the hospital. The first letter of joyous welcome which he
received from home told him that his family had been wearing mourning
four months for him, and a printed funeral sermon which shortly followed
the letter gave an account of his supposed death at the Battle of the
Wilderness, and contained a eulogy upon his character.

I remember being particularly impressed by a description of hunger in
the hospital at Libby, given by Lieutenant William Foy Smith, who came
at this time. He belonged to the First Massachusetts Cavalry. He was
shot through the lungs, and left for dead on the battle-field. By the
kind care of colored women, who brought him milk, he was
resuscitated--to find himself a prisoner. He said that often at night in
Libby he would amuse himself by calculating how many places there were
in Washington Street, Boston, where edibles were to be had, and he would
fancy the people getting oysters and thousands of good things; and then
he would muse over all the bountiful dinners that he used to have at
home, and reproach himself for not having partaken more heartily,
resolving, if ever he had another opportunity, that his gnawing appetite
should forever do itself justice. Then he would wildly scrape the wall
by which he was lying, and ravenously devour the atoms from it, until at
last he would dream in his sleep of happier days to come. After several
months, Lieutenant Smith was able to rejoin his regiment, whose entrance
into Richmond he thus describes: "I shall never repine again, while I
have health; but who talks of repining after such a march as our last? I
joined the regiment at Manchester, opposite Richmond. How often have I
looked across the river to th