our home every day life. There
were mechanics, tradesmen, artists and laborers. Some could take beef
bones and out of them fashion all manner of beautiful trinkets, such as
napkin rings, bibles, crochet needles, etc., others could make pencil
sketches of the different scenes that were daily witnessed, portraits of
prisoners, sketches of the different portions of the stockade and
quarters. Others were better adapted to buying and selling, and still
others could repair or make shoes. I remember seeing one pair of shoes
made that I must describe. The sole was shaped out of a piece of pine
board or plank, and the uppers were made out of an old pair of boot legs;
a groove was made entirely around the sole, and the leather pegged on, so
that the sole came out about half an inch each side, making a really
artistic pair of shoes, and durable too, fastened together with wooden
pegs whittled out by hand. I had a pair of slippers made out of the cape
of my overcoat that were not only comfortable, but serviceable as well,
and not at all bad looking. In this prison every trade was represented and
nearly all were plied to some extent, sometimes for the purpose of gaining
a living and sometimes to keep the mind occupied, and to make their
quarters more comfortable.

As for myself, having up to the time of entering the service been a
salesman, I found this to be my most profitable vocation. I sold on
commission; I see by referring to a diary kept by me during my
imprisonment, that on the 11th of May I sold a pair of gauntlets for one
officer for twenty dollars and another pair for twenty-five dollars; also
a hat for Lieutenant Hastings, 24th New York Independent Battery, for
twenty dollars. By thus selling for others who could not sell such
articles, or buying of them and selling to the Johnnies, I could make
enough, with an occasional sale of some of my own surplus stock, to buy
enough provisions to add to my drawn rations to make myself quite
comfortable most of the time. I was always fond of a good meal, and I fear
when I give a list of what I bought and the price I paid, the reader will
think I had rather extravagant notions in this respect. For instance, one
day I paid fifteen dollars for a beef shank and fifty-six dollars for a
smoked ham, five dollars for a dozen eggs, and three seventy-five for a
cabbage, and was offered peas in the pod at one dollar a quart, but I
thought this would be rather too rich for my blood and postponed