ous asperity characteristic
of gnat-brained headquarters attaches:

"Get out of here!" as if I had been a stray cur wandering in in search of
a bone lunch.

I wanted to feed the fellow to a pile-driver. The utmost I could hope
for in the way of revenge was that the delicate creature might some day
make a mistake in parting his hair, and catch his death of cold.

The guard conducted us across the street, and into the third story of a
building standing on the next corner below. Here I found about four
hundred men, mostly belonging to the Army of the Potomac, who crowded
around me with the usual questions to new prisoners: What was my
Regiment, where and when captured, and:

What were the prospects of exchange?

It makes me shudder now to recall how often, during the dreadful months
that followed, this momentous question was eagerly propounded to every
new comer: put with bated breath by men to whom exchange meant all that
they asked of this world, and possibly of the next; meant life, home,
wife or sweet-heart, friends, restoration to manhood, and self-respect
--everything, everything that makes existence in this world worth having.

I answered as simply and discouragingly as did the tens of thousands that
came after me:

"I did not hear anything about exchange."

A soldier in the field had many other things of more immediate interest
to think about than the exchange of prisoners. The question only became
a living issue when he or some of his intimate friends fell into the
enemy's hands.

Thus began my first day in prison.

CHAPTER VIII.

INTRODUCTION TO PRISON LIFE--THE PEMBERTON BUILDING AND ITS OCCUPANTS
--NEAT SAILORS--ROLL CALL--RATIONS AND CLOTHING--CHIVALRIC "CONFISCATION."

I began acquainting myself with my new situation and surroundings.
The building into which I had been conducted was an old tobacco factory,
called the "Pemberton building," possibly from an owner of that name,
and standing on the corner of what I was told were Fifteenth and Carey
streets. In front it was four stories high; behind but three, owing to
the rapid rise of the hill, against which it was built.

It fronted towards the James River and Kanawha Canal, and the James
River--both lying side by side, and only one hundred yards distant,
with no intervening buildings. The front windows afforded a fine view.
To the right front was Libby, with its guards pacing around it on the
sidewalk, watching the fifteen hundred of