uited the fastidious taste of General Schoeff
were permitted to come inside the "pen." The officers and privates
were supposed to be strictly "incommunicado," but even these found
means of communication. The open, spacious courts on both sides of the
separating fence, on fair days, were always thronged with men
taking exercise. A short note--a small piece of coal was the "mail
coach"--the route was the "air line"--the note securely tied to the
piece of coal, and at an opportune moment, when the guard's face was
in a favorable direction, the "mail" passed over the "air line" into
the other pen, and vice versa. This line kept up a regular business,
but was never detected.

A large majority of prisoners (officers) had some acquaintance,
friend, or relative in Baltimore, New York, or other Northern cities,
who would gladly furnish money or clothing to them. Provisions
were not permissible under the rules and regulations of the prison
authorities. Baltimore, especially, and New York did much toward
relieving the burdens of prison life. Such inestimable ladies as Mrs.
Mary Howard, of Baltimore, and Mrs. Anna Hoffman, of New York, deserve
an everlasting monument of eternal gratitude for the great and
good service rendered the unfortunate Confederate prisoners. These
philanthropic ladies, with hundreds of other sympathizing men and
women of the North, kept many of us furnished with money and clothing.
The money itself we were not permitted to have. In its stead the
prison officials issued the amounts of money on bits of parchment
in denominations of five cents, ten cents, twenty-five cents, fifty
cents, and one dollar pieces. This was the prison currency. The prison
name for it was "sheepskin." The prison officials would not allow us
to have the "cold cash," lest we should enter into a combination and
bribe an important guard, thereby effecting an escape. The "sheepskin"
answered every other purpose for trade. We had a suttler who was a
suttler right. He was a real, genuine, down-east Yankee. He loved
money ("sheepskins" were money to him), and he would furnish us with
anything we wanted for plenty "sheepskins." He would even furnish
whiskey "on the sly," which was positively prohibited by the prison
regulations. He had only to go to headquarters at the close of the day
and have his "sheepskins" cashed in genuine greenbacks, and he went
away happy and serene, to dream of more "sheepskins."

The amusements and diversions of pr