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To go into a prison of war is in all respects to be born over. ... And so in this far little world, which was as much separated from the outer world as if it had been in the outer confines of space, it was striking to see how society immediately resolved itself into those three estates invariably constituted elsewhere. Sidney Lanier in Tiger Lilies.Sidney Lanier, the Southern poet, in the novel Tiger Lilies, from which the quotation at the head of the chapter was taken, has elaborated some of his reflections during his own prison life at City Point, in the American Civil War. The individuals comprising the three estates, however, were not wholly the same in prison and out. Life in prison brought out unexpected capabilities and unsuspected deficiencies. Men who in the ordinary routine of life, and even in the new environment of the ranks had been respected, sometimes failed when subjected to the severer strain of prison life. The eccentric and the misfits sometimes showed themselves able to cope with situations before which their supposed superiors quailed and surrendered. This was not always true. Often the strong and energetic men preserved those characteristics in prison, and the weak became helpless. On the other hand, those who had been rated indifferent or ordinary showed unexpected treasures of strength and resourcefulness, cheering their despondent comrades, and preventing them from giving up the fight. The veneer of convention often peeled away, showing the real man beneath, sometimes attractive, sometimes unpleasant. Men who were confined for any length of time stood naked, stripped of all disguise, before their fellows. Where conditions were particularly
