and fuel. They are doing this systematically, and I believe are killing them intentionally, for the purpose either of forcing our Government to an exchange, or forcing our men into their own army."

The testimony of Mr. Brown, also a correspondent of the "Tribune," corroborates the above statements of Mr. Richardson. He says:

"I have often wished that I could obtain a photograph of that room in Salisbury Prison; for I can give no idea of its repulsiveness and superlative squalor.

ORIGINAL DESIGN OF SALISBURY PRISON.

"The prison was formerly a cotton factory, about ninety by thirty feet; and when we were there, they had only six or seven hundred confined within its walls. A dirtier, smokier, drearier, and more unwholesome place I had never seen than the room in which we were placed. It reminded me of some old junk-shop in South street of the city I had left, and was hung round with filthy rags-tattered quilts and blankets, reeking with vermin, which the wretched inmates used as clothes and bed covering,-and thronged mostly with Northern and Southern citizens, most of whom were in garments long worn out, and as far removed from cleanliness as the wearers from happiness. In that abhorred abode we were compelled to eat and sleep as best we might. There were but two stoves, both old and broken, in the room; and they gave out no heat, but any quantity of smoke, which filled the apartment with bitter blueness. Vermin swarmed every where; they

No

tortured us while we tried to sleep on our coarse blankets, and kept us in torment when awake. light of any kind was furnished us; and there we sat night after night in the thick darkness, inhaling the foul vapors and the acrid smoke, longing for the morning, when we could again catch a glimpse of the overarching sky.

DEATH-LIFE.

"Think of this death-life month after month! Think of men of delicate organization, accustomed to ease and luxury, of fine taste, and a passionate love for the beautiful, without a word of sympathy, or a whisper of hope, wearing their days out amid such scenes. Not a pleasant sound, nor a sweet odor, nor a vision of fairness, ever reached them. They were buried as completely as if they lay beneath the ruins of Pompeii or Herculaneum. They breathed mechanically, but were shut out from all that renders existence endurable. Every sense was shocked perpetually, and yet the heart, by a strange inconsistency, kept up its throbs, and preserved the physical being of a hundred and fifty wretched captives, who, no doubt, often prayed to die. Few persons can have any idea of a long imprisonment in the South. They usually regard it as an absence of freedom, a deprivation of the pleasures and excitements of ordinary life. They do not take into consideration the scant and miserable rations that no one, unless he be half-famished, can eat; the necessity of going cold and hungry in the wet and wintry season; the constant torture from vermin, of which no care or caution

can free one; the total isolation; the supreme dreariness, the dreadful monotony, the perpetual turning inward of the mind upon itself, the self-devouring of the heart, week after week, month after month, and year after year."

CHAPTER XXI.

AT ANDERSONVILLE "CAMP SUMTER."

"IT is from no unfair motives that I am induced o make the following statement of what I saw and experienced while a prisoner in the hands of the Rebels during the spring, summer, and autumn of 1864. I have tried to give a truthful account of some of the cruelties and sufferings which our poor boys were called to endure in filthy, loathsome southern prisons and hospitals. It seems to me there can be no reason for any one to make a false report of the miseries we received at the hands of our heartless captors and brutal prison-keepers. To tell the truth of them is all that is needed to convince any reasonable man of their barbarities and fiendish attempt to deprive our soldiers, whom the fortune of war had thrown into their power, of every comfort and enjoyment of life.

CAPTURE OF PLYMOUTH.

"But to my narrative. I was captured April second, 1864, at Plymouth, North Carolina. It is to the credit of the Rebel soldiers whose good fortune it was to capture our command, stationed there to hold and defend the place, that we were treated with considerable courtesy and kindness while in

their power. To my knowledge, no outrages were committed upon any of our white troops, though I believe the small negro force with us fared very hard. Our men were allowed to retain their blankets and overcoats, and all little articles of value which they might have upon their persons. Many of the men had about them large sums of money, which they were allowed to keep.

MARCH FROM PLYMOUTH TO TARBORO'.

"From Plymouth a long and wearisome march was made to Tarboro', a very pretty town, situated on the Neuse, a few miles from Goldsboro'. By the time we arrived there the men were much fagged and worn out. The last day of the march we were without rations, and suffered a great deal from hunger and weariness. Soon after reaching our campingground, near the town, rations were issued to us. There were a few cow peas, or beans, more properly, some corn-meal, a small piece of bacon, and a very meagre allowance of salt, for each man. Some old iron kettles, tins, etc., were provided for us to cook our food in, and a small quantity of wood furnished; and we managed to prepare a repast which was very palatable to our well-whetted appetites. A system of trading was immediately commenced, which was carried on for a while very briskly, but was finally prohibited by the Rebel authorities. Our men would barter away their watches, rings, gold pen-holders, pocket-knives, coat-buttons, etc., for Confederate pone cakes, hard bread, and bacon, from the Rebels. The most exorbitant prices were