Limited news service.
Our company shortly after this was divided.
The Federals, finding the place was in too crowded a condition, sent off a considerable number of the prisoners to
Elmira, in New York State, including the greater part of our people.
We parted, as may be supposed, with many expressions of regret.
We had been thrown together so much under very trying circumstances that we felt the separation a good deal.
It was with intense feeling that those of us who remained heard, from time to time, from new prisoners coming in, of the varying fortunes of the war. A stray copy of the New York Herald or other Northern journal would find its way in. News would also be communicated by the
Federals themselves, and though reports coming in this way had to be received
curm grano salis we could form a tolerable accurate
[
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idea of what was being done in and around
Petersburg.
The news of the
battle of the Crater reached us in due season.
The Federals humorously said it had failed because, though the
Confederates were indeed blown up, they came down in the position of ‘charge bayonets.’
Of course, false reports would be circulated that
Petersburg had fallen, but when these died away it was seen to our great relief that the ‘thin gray line’ still stood a line of fire between the city and the enemy.
