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

[167] in and asked for the officer with the jacket, a friend outside wanted to talk with him. They shook me and asked where he was. I replied, “He lay down over the other side.” They carried pitch-pine torches and looked at every man, but failed to find the jacket. We managed to live through the night, and in the morning my boy returned the diary, and Frank, two other officers who had been recaptured, and myself were taken out to be sent to Columbia. As we passed out I heard one of the gang say, “There is the cuss with the jacket,” but he did not take it, and we marched to the depot.

The rebels must have entertained an idea that Yankees could live without food, for they issued no rations to us either at night or in the morning, and we were hungry enough to eat a raw dog. Our train was one of those southern tri-weeklies which went from Augusta to Columbia one week and tried to get back the next, and stopped at every crossroad. At one place an old negro woman was selling sweet potato pies. I had a Byam's match paper and bought one with it. She asked, “Is it good, boss?” I replied that it was worth five dollars in Confederate, and she was satisfied. I think she got the best of it, for the thing she sold me for a pie was a worse imitation of that article than the match paper was of Confederate money. At another place I bought a two-quart pail two-thirds full of ham fat, paying for it with one of the five dollar bills Packard gave us.

We spent the entire day on the road, arriving at Columbia at seven o'clock in the evening, and were put in jail. We were not confined in a cell, but in a small room with a fireplace; we found a fire burning on the health, and went to work. As we had had no opportunity to examine our