We were allowed to purchase whatever supplies the Richmond market afforded, and to have our meals prepared in the prison kitchen, by paying the old negro who presided there. These were privileges enjoyed by none of the other inmates. Supplies commanded very high prices; it was a favorite jest in the city, that the people had to carry money in their baskets and bring home marketing in their porte-monnaies. Our mess consisted of the four correspondents and Mr. Charles Thompson, a citizen of Connecticut, whose Democratic proclivities, age, and gravity, invariably elected him spokesman when we wished to communicate with the prison authorities. As they regarded us with special hostility, we kept in the back-ground; but Mr. Thompson's quiet tenacity, which no refusal could dishearten, and the "greenbacks" which no attaché could resist, secured us many favors.
Stealing from Flag-of-Truce Letters.
Northern letters from our own families reached us with considerable regularity. Those sent by other persons were mostly withheld. Robert Ould, the Rebel Commissioner of Exchange, with petty malignity, never permitted one of the many written from The Tribune office to reach us. All inclosures, excepting money, and sometimes including it, were stolen with uniform consistency. I finally wrote upon one of my missives, which was to go North:
"Will the person who systematically abstracts newspaper slips, babies' pictures, and postage-stamps from my letters, permit the inclosed little poem to reach its destination, unless entirely certain that it is contraband and dangerous to the public service?"
Apparently a little ashamed, the Rebel censor thereafter ceased his peculations.
For a time, boxes of supplies from the North were forwarded to us with fidelity and promptness. Supposing that this could not last long, we determined to make hay while the sun shone. One day, dining from the contents of a home box, in cutting through the butter, my knife struck something hard. We sounded, and brought to the surface a little phial, hermetically sealed. We opened it, and there found "greenbacks!"
Upon that hint we acted. While it was impossible to obtain letters from the North, we could always smuggle them thither by exchanged prisoners, who would sew them up in their clothing, or in some other manner conceal them. We immediately began to send many orders for boxes; all but two or three came safely to hand, and "brought forth butter in a lordly dish." Treasury notes were also sent bound in covers of books so deftly as to defy detection. One of my messmates thus received two hundred and fifty dollars in a single Bible. The supplies of money, obtained in this manner, lasted through nearly all our remaining imprisonment, and were of infinite service.
Paroles Repudiated by the Rebels.
All the prisoners who were taken to Richmond with us had received identically the same paroles. In every case, except ours, the Rebels recognized the paroles, and sent the persons holding them through the lines. But they utterly disregarded ours. We felt it a sort of duty to keep them occasionally reminded of their solemn, deliberate, written obligation to us. We first did this through our attorney, General Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky. His relations with Robert Ould were very close. Upon receiving heavy fees in United States currency, he had secured the release of several citizens, after all other endeavors failed. The prisoners believed that Ould shared the fees.
General Marshall made a strong statement of our case in writing, adding to the application for release: