Under fire of their own men.
Among the prisoners their were 600 commissioned officers.
We were called out, placed on the steamer
Crescent, and after a stay of eighteen days on the vessel were landed at the lower end of
Morris Island, S. C. We were under the impression that we were to be exchanged, but were marched to the upper end and put in the stockade.
Here we were placed under the fire of our own guns.
The Confederates occupied
Charleston and the
Federals Fort Wagner.
The stockade was between the two armies, hence we were exposed to the fire of both.
Our men knew where we were, and they cut their fuse so that their balls would not explode over us, and thus it chanced that only a few of us were wounded.
We were divided into eight detachments, seventy-five in each, and placed in small ‘A tents,’ four men in each.
We were guarded by the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (negro) Regiment, commanded by
Colonel Patton, of
Philadelphia.
I was told by
Captain James Dunlap, a fellow prisoner, that this
Colonel Patton's father was a silk merchant of
Philadelphia, of whom
Captain Dunlap had bought goods before the war.
