John G. B. Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment

[126] should furnish us good quarters in the old United States Marine Hospital and we should have the liberty of the house and yard, in consideration of which we were not to escape. We were the last squad to leave the yard and as we went took an old “A” tent that the rebels had brought in a few days before for some sick men. Although we had been in prison but eight weeks we had learned the ropes and took anything we could lift.

We found on arriving at the Marine that we had made a mistake in not being first; then we might have had a parlor, now we must sleep on the upper balcony, but it was such a nice place, dry and clean, that we would have been contented to have slept on the roof. We arranged our captured tent to sleep on and proposed to cut it up for clothing at some future time. We slept soundly that night and were awakened the next morning by a rebel officer and two guards, who were searching for the tent. They took our names, saying we had violated our parole and must go back to jail. We did not spend a real happy day; every hour we expected the guard would come in and march us out, but night found us unmolested and we never heard from it again.

From our balcony we could look out over a part of the city. In our rear were only blackened ruins; nearly every house had been riddled with shot and shell and our own had not escaped; but in front the houses looked clean and each was surrounded with flowering trees and shrubs. It must have been a fine city before the ravages of war came. Our rations were about the same as in the jail yard, but were issued more regularly, and we had a better chance to cook. When we entered the Marine Hospital I saw an old two-gallon can and captured it. It had been used for spirits of