A very graphic description.
Experience at Johnson's Island and Point Lookout—Pickett's charge at Gettysburg—The cavalry fight at Boonesboro, Maryland.The following graphic story of the life in Northern prisons during the war is from the pen of Mr. Albert Stacey Caison, a native of Fayetteville, but now of Jefferson City, Mo. It was written while he was a resident of Lenoir, from which place he went into the army: In the Century Magazine for March, 1891, there is a touching account of prison life at Johnson's Island, and the writer, in speaking of his short stay at Point Lookout, after his release, says:
Thinking we had exhausted the capacity of prison life for harm, we were little prepared for the sight which met our eyes as we entered this place; but seeing these unfortunates, we felt that we stood in the presence of men who had touched depths of suffering that we had not reached. All along the route we were fearful that some evil chance should turn us back again to the old life, but that fear became secondary to the dread lest we should call a permanent halt at this point, and we drew a long breath of relief when we marched out of this place.I was one of ‘these unfortunates,’ and, strange to say, survived seventeen months of the horrors he witnessed there, and neither time nor circumstance can ever efface the recollection of what I suffered. Like all Southern boys, I believed that the war would be brief but glorious, and when the call came for volunteers I was one of the first [159] to respond; and I cannot describe my feeling of disappointment and chagrin when my father—himself a volunteer—told me that I must not join the army, but must continue at school, my fear now being that the war would end before I could have any share in it. However, my enthusiasm did not cool in the least, and I found some consolation in drilling a company of my school-mates, and feeling that we were practicing to some purpose. When I did go into the Army I joined Company I, Twenty-sixth North Carolina regiment, and was as proud and happy as possible when I put on soldier's clothes, shouldered my gun, and marched away to share the danger and the glory of this courageous band. But as I am to tell of my prison life I must pass over other events in camp and field, and commence with the Battle of Gettysburg, where all active service for my beloved South came to a bitter end.
