The prisoners here bore no malice
Among the prisoners confined at
Charleston during the latter months of the war was
Major Orlando J. Smith, of the Sixth Indiana Cavalry, who bore testimony all his life to the fair treatment of young officers like himself.
‘We were treated,’ he said, ‘exactly as well as the
Confederates.
We were hungry sometimes and so were they.’
The prisoners were kept, among other places, in the
Roper Hospital shown on this page, and the
O'Connor House shown on the page following.
Major Smith was confined in the latter place.
The
battle of Nashville had been fought, and
Sherman was on his way from the sea. The investment of
Petersburg was drawing closer every day, and the
Confederacy was slowly crumbling.
Victory and release were at hand, and in the meantime the shady porches of the
Roper Hospital shown below were not an unpleasant place to lounge.
Undoubtedly many of the prisoners yearned with fierce eagerness to be free again, but their incarceration here was not to be for long.
