G.—"What did you mean by it?"
Col.—"It was the desire of the officers that I should address them, which I did, as is the custom in our country on the 4th of July."
G.—"Sir, I shall put you in irons, and send you to jail."
Col.—"Very well, you can do so; but such treatment will not ameliorate my feelings toward you or the Confederacy in the least. We deem it not only a privilege, but a duty, to commemorate the 4th of July as the birth-day of a great nation, for whose defense and perpetuity we are willing to suffer, and die, if need be."
At this the Captain commuted his verdict to solitary confinement in jail without irons; but, before the guard arrived, the order was entirely revoked, and Colonel Thorp was sent back inside the stockade, with threats of summary treatment if he persisted in addressing the officers again on any subject.
SAVANNAH—CHARLESTON.
On July 28th, the first division of prisoners went to Charleston. This took of the 16th, Major Pasco, Quartermaster Robins, Captains Morse, Robinson, Burke, Hintz, and Lieutenant Bruns. The next day 600 more left for Savannah. In this squad all the remaining officers of the 16th went, they being Chaplain Dixon, Adjutant Clapp, Captain Turner, Lieutenants A.G. Case, Bowers, Strong, Andrus, Miller, Waters, Landon, and Blakeslee. On our way we busied ourselves by pitching the guards out of the cars when under full headway. Arriving at Savannah we were received by a large delegation of citizens, who were greatly interested, and wondered where our horns and tails were. Great was their surprise that we did not look different from their soldiers. The crowd was very great, and the police, aided by the city militia, could hardly clear the way for us to march through the streets. The officer in charge also was greatly confused, and gave so many wrong orders that it was a long time before we were able to march to the old United States Marine Hospital. We were confined in the yard surrounded on three sides by a brick wall eight feet high. While at this prison Lieutenant John M. Waters was taken sick with bilious fever. After a sickness of two weeks he was taken into the hospital on August 17th, dying the next day at 11 A.M. On the 19th, Chaplain Dixon was allowed to go out and perform the last duty of respect to our comrade in the presence of the Commander of the prison, Officer of the Day, Officer of the Guard, two Lieutenants, and four privates. Lieutenant Waters was very genial and, until his sickness, had kept up good courage. On September 2d, the Chaplains and Surgeons were sent to Charleston to be exchanged. This took Chaplain Dixon and Assistant Surgeon Nickerson of the 16th.
At an early hour on the morning of September 13th, we left Savannah and went to Charleston, where we were enthusiastically received and thrown into the yard of the jail. We here found Edward Woodford of Company I, who gave us some of the casualties of the enlisted men at Andersonville. He reported that the regiment stood it better than the other regiments who were captured at Plymouth, but already sixty had died. Two days after our arrival, Major Pasco, who was on parole at Roper hospital, (together with the balance of the 16th officers who left Macon in the first division, July 28th,) visited us, and through his efforts three days after, we joined him at Roper Hospital, by signing the following parole.
Charleston, S.C., C.S. America,
September, 1864.
"We, the undersigned, prisoners of war, confined in the city of Charleston, in the Confederate States of America, do pledge our parole individually as military men and men of honor, that we will not attempt to pass the lines which shall be established and guarded around our prison house; nor will we, by letter, word, or sign, hold any intercourse with parties beyond those lines, nor with those who may visit us, without authority. It is understood by us, that this parole is voluntary on our part, and given in consideration of privileges secured to us, by lessening the stringency of the guard, of free ingress and egress of the house and appointed grounds during the day, by which we secure a liberty of fresh air and exercise, grateful to comfort and health.