CHAPTER XI.
receiving and sending off the mail—attempts to smuggle through forbidden matter—samples of letters sent home—boxes of letters received—my feelings at not receiving any.
We were allowed to write home, and by putting on a Confederate postage stamp costing 10 cents each, were promised that our letters would be forwarded to our friends, provided there was nothing objectionable in them.
We were obliged to leave them unsealed, so they could be examined by the postoffice department, and in order to ensure an examination they must be limited to fifty words. I wrote home a number of times, and my letters, as a general thing, came through all right. I wrote some that I did not expect they would forward, and was much surprised when I reached home to find they had been received all right, and in some cases published in the daily papers. I will give you a sample of one or two. The first was written to my cousin, H. M. Cooper, and read as follows:
C. S. MILITARY PRISON,
Macon, Ga., July 6, 1864.
My Dear Hal:—
Nearly four months have now elapsed since I took up my abode in this land of bacon and corn dodgers, and like the prodigal son, I often think of my father’s house, where there is bread enough and to spare. I dream nightly of fatted calves, but awake daily to the sad reality that my veal cutlets have all been transformed into salt bacon, my wheaten loaves into corn dodgers, and my wine into bran coffee.
I had purposed to visit the North during the summer months, but the many friends I have found here are so anxious to have me remain, that I find it impossible to tear myself away. But I expect the General[1] will soon be here, when I shall be obliged to say farewell to my Southern friends and with much reluctance leave their sunny clime for my cold, chilly, Northern home.
But their kindness and hospitality will ever be green in my memory and I shall improve every opportunity to show them the gratitude I feel for the hospitality they have actually forced me to accept.