treated as convicted felons. But his name would blister the
tongue of a brave man, and I should apologize for writing it.

When we entered this gloomy mansion of "crime and woe," it was with
misery in our hearts, although an affected gaiety of manner. We could
not escape the conviction, struggle against it as we would, that we were
placed there to remain while the war lasted, and most of as believed
that the war would outlast the generation. We were told, when we went
in, that we "were there to stay," and there was something infernal in
the gloom and the massive strength of the place, which seemed to bid us
"leave all hope behind." While we were waiting in the hall, to which we
were assigned, before being placed in our cells, a convict, as I
supposed, spoke to me in a low voice from the grated door of one of the
cells already occupied. I made some remark about the familiarity of our
new friends on short acquaintance, when by the speaker's peculiar laugh
I recognized General Morgan. He was so shaven and shorn, that his voice
alone was recognizable, for I could not readily distinguish his figure.
We were soon placed in our respective cells and the iron barred doors
locked. Some of the officers declared subsequently, that when left
alone, and the eyes of the keepers were taken off of them, they came
near swooning. It was not the apprehension of hardship or harsh
treatment that was so horrible; it was the stifling sense of close
cramped confinement. The dead weight of the huge stone prison seemed
resting on our breasts. On the next day we were taken out to undergo
some of the "usual prison discipline," and were subjected to a sort of
dress-parade. We were first placed man by man, in big hogsheads filled
with water (of which there were two), and solemnly scrubbed by a couple
of negro convicts. This they said was done for sanitary reasons. The
baths in the lake at Johnson's Island were much pleasanter, and the
twentieth man who was ordered into either tub, looked ruefully at the
water, as if he thought it had already done enough for health. Then we
were seated in barber chairs, our beards were taken off, and the
officiating artists were ordered to give each man's hair "a decent cut."
We found that according to the penitentiary code, the decent way of
wearing the hair was to cut it all off--if the same rule had been
adopted with regard to clothing, the Digger Indians would have been
superfluously clad in comparison with (what w