tion, and even of regard, and in one of them I found a true
friend.

Shortly after Wallace came into office, he made several changes. He was
full of caprices, and easily took offence from very small causes; and of
this the keepers, as well as the prisoners, had abundant experience. The
head jailer did his best to please, behaving in the most humble and
submissive manner; but all to no purpose. He was discharged, as were
also the others, one after another,--Wallace undertaking to act as head
jailer himself. Of Wallace's vexatious conduct towards me; of his
refusal to allow me to receive newspapers,--prohibiting the under jailer
to lend me even the Baltimore _Sun_; of his accusation against me of
bribing old Jake, whom he forbade the turnkeys to allow to come near me;
of his keeping me shut up in my cell; and generally of a bitter spirit
of angry malice against me,--I had abundant reason to complain during
the weary fifteen months or more that I remained under his power. But
his subordinates, though obliged to obey his orders and to comply with
his humors, were far from being influenced by his feelings. Even his
favorite among the turnkeys, a person who pretty faithfully copied his
conduct towards the other prisoners, always behaved very kindly towards
me, and even used to make a confidant of me, by coming to my cell to
talk over his troubles.

But the person whose kind offices and friendly sympathy did far more
than those of any other to relieve the tediousness of my confinement,
and to keep my heart from sinking, was Mr. Wood. There is no chaplain at
the Washington jail, nor has Congress, so far as I am aware, made any
provision of any kind for the spiritual wants or the moral and religious
instruction of the inmates of it. This great deficiency Mr. Wood, a man
of a great heart, though of very limited pecuniary means, being then a
clerk in the Telegraph office, had taken it upon himself to supply, so
far as he could; and for that purpose he was in the habit of visiting
the prison on Sundays, conversing with the prisoners, and furnishing
tracts and books to such as were able and disposed to read. He came to
my cell, or to the grating of the passage in which I was confined, on
the very first Sunday of my imprisonment, and he readily promised, at my
request, to furnish me with a Bible; though in that act of kindness he
was anticipated by the colored woman of whom I have already made
mention, who appeared at my cell, with