by one they yielded up their lives a sacrifice for liberty.

On one occasion, I heard the guards engaged in an animated discussion concerning their participation in the war. One of them remarked:

"Bill, you and I are both poor men, and what in the name of God are we fighting for?" Why, Tom, you haven't turned traitor to the Confederacy, have you?"

"No," said he, "I can't say that I have, but I'd like mighty well to know what profit this whole thing will be to us poor people. I have a family, you know; and I have been forced to leave them, and here I am. You know how everything hes riz. There's flour now, and you can't git a barrel for less nor forty dollars, and pork is fifty dollars a hundred, and there aint a bit of salt to be got for love nor money. Now, I'd jist like to know what a man's family is going to do under such circumstances ?”

Bill answered by saying:

"This war aint a-going to last long. How'll them fellers do without cotton. They'll have to give in afore two months, for all their manufactures have stopped now."

"Don't you believe a word of that 'ere stuff. It's all gammon, I tell you. They can do without us a great deal better nor we can do

without them. They've got the whole world to resort to, and can git their supplies anywhere they please."

"Yes, I know that; but then they haint got anything other nations want. It was our cotton what brought all the gold and silver into the country."

"There's that old song again. Why, they've got the best perducing land in the world. And their corn and cattle aint to be sneezed at the world over."

"Well, that may all be true," rejoined the other, "but they can't whip us."

"Well, suppose we whip them, what will be gained ?"

"Why, we'll stop the 'tarnal thieves from stealing our niggers."

"Now that's a grand mistake. Don't you see every nigger in the South will break right for the North, for there won't be no Fugitive Slave Law then. And then you know what a dreadful time we had not long ago up Lowndes county with the niggers, for this here country's got twice as many niggers as whites."

At this an angry dispute arose between them, one declaring the other an abominable Yankee, and the other as stoutly denying it. Oaths were freely bandied, and the loyal Southerner

threatened to call the corporal of the guard, and have the other arrested. The latter in the mean time continued to protest that he had said nothing detrimental to Southern interests.

"Well, how did you know," said the rabid secessionist, "about the cattle and corn in New York, if you had never lived there ?"

"But I have been there, though I never lived in that region."

Well, if that's the case," responded his antagonist, "you had better keep mighty quiet about it, or we'll treat you like we did John Peterson, that miserable Yankee that we hung last week to a pine tree."

Just then the relief-guard came, and the conversation ceased. I noted down at the time the dialogue as it occurred, gave the manuscript. subsequently to my friend Captain Steadman, who, in connection with other papers, as the reader will presently learn, carried it to Washington city, where I received it from him.

From all this, which was spoken in a most angry and boisterous manner, and while I held my ear to the key-hole of the prison-door, I learned what excessive antipathy the Southern people, as a mass, entertain towards persons of Northern birth. As the reader follows me through this book, other evidences of Southern

ignorance, malice, and inhumanity will arise, all of which I witnessed or experienced, and all of which are related with no spirit of hatred, but as an "ower true tale." I do not relate these facts in the spirit of a politician, nor for political purposes; for the nativity, education, and political antecedents of myself and of the entire family from which I sprung, have developed a warm support of Democratic principles. To these I yet ardently adhere, though positively and absolutely repudiating that form thereof which in the slightest degree affiliates with treason or oppression.

CHAPTER V.

Southern Inhumanity-A Prison Telegraph-Mobile-Conversation with a Fire-Eater-Negro Sale Stables-A Bad Sign-Mule Beef-Montgomery-In the Penitentiary— Felon Soldiers-Hanging for Theft-Visit to a Condemned Prisoner-Who Shall Answer?

OUR condition now became so painful and distressing, that, as a last resort, we determined to petition the authorities for a redress of our grievances. We had neither beds nor blankets, and the allowance of rations doled out to us was insufficient to sustain life. A lieutenant in the Confederate service, a poor, illiterate fellow; not possessed of education sufficient to call the muster-roll correctly, entered the prison and threatened to place Major Crockett-of whom we have spoken before-in irons, simply because he had referred, in the Lieutenant's presence, in no very favorable terms, to the character of our treatment. We had made application personally to Colonel McClain, then commandant of the post, and who, we learned, was a professed Christian. We were careful to appeal to his Christianity as a means of awakening an interest in our behalf. His reply was as follows:

"You invaders! you abolitionists! you that