The daily promises of “Old Gip,” that Jackson’s men shall be paroled in a few days, are not believed; yet, with this unbelief is blended a ray of hope, and for one I say, “for God’s sake destroy not the hopes that man holds out to me; upon them I live.” Dr. Reid says if we cannot imbibe the spirit, it is often profitable to put on the appearance of cheerfulness. “By seeming gay, we grow to what we seem.”
Thousands of dollars worth of clothing have been sent to the Confederate prisoners by Secessionists, and very little do they get. “Old Gip” refuses to give it to many who are in a destitute condition, but he makes the impression outside, that all clothing sent to us by Secession friends is given to us. A box was sent to Captain R. (a prisoner) with clothing in it, to distribute among the destitute prisoners, but Gibson refused to allow him. The clothing is given to Yankee soldiers. The Dutch Captain Mtowlowski paid us a visit to-day. He is a florid, fat, happy-looking, short fellow, with legs so thick, that they very much resemble an elephant’s. His face is large and rosy, and its general expression a mixture of good humor and inexhaustible drollery. He wears a moustache a la militaire. On the whole, he presents the appearance of a migratory lager beer keg. He would be muscular, had not lager beer enervated his strong build, by placing a superabundance of useless fat where muscle ought to be. The Captain says that he was a prisoner in Europe, and that our fare is a paradise to what his was, which is very hard to believe.
To-day my thoughts have turned to my early friends—those who have been weighed in the balance and found not wanting. The thoughts of early friendship! what a world of tender memory they suggest. For what are all our later successes in life, however bright out fortunes, compared with the early triumphs of boyish days? Where, among the jealous rivalry of some, the cold and half-wrung praise of others, the selfish and unsympathizing regard of all, shall we find anything to repay us for the swelling exstacy of our young hearts, as we pledged ourselves to each other in prosperity or adversity in the noble bonds of friendship? Some moments we have which half seem to realize our early dreams of ambition, and rouse the spirit within us. But what were all compared to our boyish glories—to the little world of sympathy and love our early friendships teemed with as we pledged ourselves to each other? No, the world has no requital for this! It is like a bright day, which, as its glories gild the east, display before us a whole world of beauty and promise. Then our hopes have not withered—false friendships have not scathed—cold, selfish interest has not yet hardened our hearts or dried up our affections, and we are indeed happy; but equally, like the burst of morning, it is short-lived and fleeting, and equally does it pass away, never to return.
July 19th. My thoughts this morning have been engrossed upon the subject of being exchanged or paroled—on being again among congenial friends in the “Old Dominion!” But I shall no longer allow my fortune or lot to be the sport of my temperament. I shall not give way to that April-day frame of mind which is ever the jest and scoff of those hardier and sterner natures, who, if never overjoyed by success, are never much depressed by failure; for the glimpses of sunshine the world has afforded me, fleeting and passing enough, in all conscience, I am not so ungrateful as to repine, because it was not permanent. On the other hand, I am thankful for those bright hours, which, if nothing more, are, at least, delightful souvenirs. They form the golden thread in the tangled web of our existence, ever appearing amid the darker surface around, and throwing a fair halo of brilliancy on what—without it—were cold, bleak and barren.
Lieutenant -—-, since he has been in prison here, wrote to his cousin at York, Pennsylvania, a friendly letter, and received the following reply:—“Cousin, I can hardly call you dear cousin, for were I in the Union army you might have shot me if you would have had the chance, which I do think you would do if you get the chance; so as it is your thoughts to kill all Northern men that you can, relation or not, and which I do think it is a shame for you to do, being as all your relations lives in the North, and are all Union people, so far as I know of, which place I seen yesterday you was born in twenty years ago, and eighty years ago your grand father fought for the glorious country, and now you want to turn right around to drive it to nothing at the point of the bayonet, which I do think that you are doing wrong. Had I a hold of you I know I would make you git—if you was pressed into it I can forgive you, but if you fight against this country free-hearted I can’t forgive you, and don’t fear you neither. It is right that they have taken you a prisoner, and I hope they will deal with you as they ought, being as they have you, and all such friends and relations as I have in the rebel army, if there are more of them. I hope in some future day you may see how wrong you have done to trample down that banner which waves over once so glorious a country as this. Now, as a rebel, you want to destroy it. Shame on you as a Christian, as you wanted to be in days gone by. I still thought you had more respect for this country than you show for up to this time. Think of this letter whenever you write to me—think that you are writing to a Union cousin, which has more sense in his big toe than you have in your head. For me to come to see you is impossible for me to do. If you was there, and I knowed you was doing write, I might come, but so I cannot; and you must think hard of me for writing such a letter to you, for I have no sympathy for a man that will do such a villainous act as you have done to this country. If you had any thoughts for yourself and your relations you might have got out of that rascally rebel army as well as you have got into it. Your relations that you enquire about are all well. If I had Jeff Davis, and you together, I would hang both of you. So now you can do as you please; you can write, or leave it alone; but that is what I think of you. If you write, tell me where your father is.
J. S. B.”
This is the Lieutenant’s rejoinder:
“Cousin J., this is a wicked world, and there are many strange people and funny things in it. Your recent letter might be classed among the latter, if it were possible for a thing to be curious, without possessing some interest. And now, for yourself, you might be a strange man if you were not precisely like all the rest of the cowards, “Full of sound and fury, and doing nothing.” Why are you not in the army battling for that glorious country which you charge your rebel cousin with attempting to destroy. Your President wants men, and just such laggards as yourself will compel a draft upon the whole people before your army is complete. ’Tis nice talk and little labor to say pretty things about the cause in which you pretend to be heartily enlisted with your pen; but before all the rebels are destroyed, you may discover that many such windy patriots as yourself will be required to lay aside the pen, and buckle on the sword. The draft which will soon be resorted to in your State may bring you into the field, and the fates of war may place you in the hands of my government. Then, if you will let me hear from you, I will teach you a Christian’s duty; and while you have scoffed at my calamity, I will endeavor to alleviate your suffering, not because you happen to be my cousin, but for the sake of humanity. Before you write to me again, I would have you leave off such vulgar notions as you now entertain of me and my brother rebels. After nine days, even, a puppy’s eyes are opened. May not cousin Josiah hope for light?”
Sunday, July 20th. It is said that the small pox has broken out in the barracks. There is certainly a case of small pox at the upper part of the island, whither he has been taken from the barracks.
The most insidious schemes are constantly resorted to by the Yankees to lead men to take the oath of allegiance. Their present condition is placed before them in colors as dark as they are; and in contrast a most captivating picture of happy freedom, in flowers of rhetoric, is presented to them, provided they throw Secession to the winds, and assume the garb of “the Union, the Constitution and the laws.” Gold is also offered them as an inducement to become traitors. Very few, comparatively, have been thus seduced to treason, and those few have been mostly of Northern birth, or else outcasts from society at home, who joined the army not from principle but from necessity. On the contrary, to the large majority of the prisoners these seductive devices are as the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree.