Before we had gone back a mile, we met the Yankee infantry advancing—and such numbers! They seemed to come out of the ground. We had to give them the road to let them pass, and I can well believe that which history records, that there were seventy-five or eighty thousand.
We were soon in the rear, indicated by the number of our prisoners, who were halted under guard in a large body, by the hospital arrangements, and by a curious looking cooking affair on wheels, which we were told belonged to the ‘Christian Commission.’ It was all of the Christian Commission that we ever saw. No doubt the cooking stove had its functions as the commission had its functions, but they were never developed under our observation.
We were marched up and merged into the body of prisoners, maybe a thousand of them, and soon met several of our acquaintances, who had been captured earlier in the fray than we, amongst them Captain Lassiter, of the N. & W. R. R., and Mr. Simpson, a son, I think, of our Mr. Simpson, whom I see before me. To him I soon became indebted.
During the afternoon the prisoners were marched across a little ravine into a body of wood, open and with but little undergrowth, the limits of a prisoners' camp were designated, the dead lines drawn, and we were told for the second time ‘to make ourselves comfortable.’ Details were permitted and ordered to bring in fence rails for fires or for constructing temporary shelter, and with the instinct and ingenuity of soldiers, many soon fixed themselves in tolerably comfortable quarters. There was also a barn of splendid tobacco near our camp, of which we were requested (by our enemies) to help ourselves.
Drs. Smith and Field and I and another gentleman, whose name I cannot recall, but who introduced himself to us as a medical man, and whom we afterwards suspected of having imposed upon us, had one fire and one improvised shelter. Friend Simpson occupied the alloted space in front of us with his mess; Captain G,——, of Richmond, and his mess to the left; and to our right there were strangers. The first day, the Sabbath, closed without an issue of rations. We, my party I mean, had had a cup of coffee with General Devens in
