A number of Confederates who were not on duty would enter this room, bringing with them some articles of food, and any prisoner who was fortunate enough to have some greenbacks could purchase, at enormous prices. This Ohio boy, mentioned, first traded for a Confederate cap, next a coat, and third, a pair of pants which were of the grey Confederate uniform. He did not procure them all the same day. He brought them upstairs into our room and took off his blue suit and put on the grey. He then walked down the stairway and commenced trading with the Confederates who were standing about the room. While they were busy trading he passed the inner guard and into the reception room unnoticed, and then walked leisurely about the room, talking to the Confederates, not being particularly noticed by them, and finally walked past the outer guard into the street. The guards no doubt supposed him to be one of their own men on account of his being dressed in a grey uniform. He walked leisurely up the street to a bakery, where he purchased some bread, and then retraced his steps, walking back past our prison, which was the last time we saw him Some time later we learned that he had made his escape to the Union lines. He certainly was a shrewd boy.
CHAPTER X.
Our Return to Danville—Many Sick with Smallpox—Smallpox Hospital, and Convalescent Camp.
On the morning of Dec. 9, 1863, the order came for us to go to Danville, Va., located on the North Carolina line a distance from Richmond of about 150 miles in a southwesterly direction. We started before daylight in the morning, going by rail. I remember my surprise as we marched out into the street. My limbs were very weak, and some pain in my knee joints and other parts of the body caused me to stagger a little as I walked. We were escorted to the railroad station and crowded into freight cars, and arrived at Danville in the evening of the same day. We were then unloaded and confined in a building similar to the one we had left, received nearly the same kind of food, and enjoyed about such privileges as we did in Richmond, being continually hungry, filthy, crowded and chilly, and also irritated by the industrious graybacks, which seemed determined to keep us company without being invited, and which caused the most of us to be rather ill-natured.
The smallpox made its appearance here about Dec. 13, but I was not aware of it until about eight days later, when I became very sick, and was lying upon the cold, bare floor for a number of days without any attention whatever. On Dec. 24 a doctor came in, looked me over, and informed me that I had smallpox, but I was feeling so very sick that this information did not make much impression on me. I did not seem to care what I had or what became of me. Late in the afternoon they came with a two-wheeled dray, upon which I was loaded and hauled about a mile to the smallpox hospital, while the wind was blowing almost a gale from the northwest, and cold for that locality. On arriving at the hospital, about sunset, I found it to be quite a comfortable place compared to where I had been staying. It contained cots for the sick such as we used in our own hospitals. I was placed upon one of these, and on either side of me were those who appeared very sick. The one on my right died the first night I was there.
This being Christmas eve, my thoughts were of course of home, and the happy times we always enjoyed on such occasions. I felt very gloomy when realizing my condition and the place in which I was confined, hardly possessing the necessaries of life, and being a prisoner of war, sick and in the hands of an enemy. This Christmas eve seemed very long and tedious. The pustules were then beginning to break out on me and my head seemed to me as large as a bushel basket. There were no pit marks left upon me from the effects of the smallpox, as I had previously been dieted, by the kindness of the Southern Confederacy, which was expert at dieting its prisoners of war.
The days and nights wore slowly away, and in a few days I began to feel better and was able to watch the proceedings about me in the hospital. Some new patients were being brought in continually, while others died and were carried out to the dead-house. This was a log house near by, where the dead were stored until ready for burial, and was generally well occupied, as many died and were buried here.
I had now been here a number of days, and to my surprise, one day Doc. Davis, who was my chum in Richmond, came into the ward in which I was confined, and told me that he had been detailed to be hospital steward of the smallpox hospital. The news of Doc. Davis’ presence cheered me up wonderfully. Of course he did all he could for us sick boys. The weather for this latitude was extremely cold during the latter part of 1863 and the beginning of 1864, but of course not as severe as in the northern States. Yet we suffered greatly on account of not being well prepared for it. About two weeks had been spent by me in the hospital, and my health was greatly improved. The authorities were talking of putting us in the convalescent camp, which they did about the second week in January.
This camp was very well located, and was composed of tents, having chimneys made of mud and sticks, with a fireplace. We were quite comfortably housed, and were allowed to have wood for fire if we chopped it, and those who were able did so. Three of us convalescents were quartered in one small tent. Here I became acquainted with my tentmates, William Herrick, of Co. F, 30th Indiana, and Calvin W. Hudson, of Co. D, 65th Ohio. We soon became quite intimate, and had many friendly chats together about home and friends, and laying plans for our escape from prison. We had bunks fixed up, made of boards, so that our beds were not on the ground. We had now secured woolen blankets from Uncle Sam, and had one apiece.
This camp was guarded by North Carolina troops. Their guard line, on which the guards paced to and fro, was about ten or fifteen feet from our row of tents. The cookhouse was located in the southeast corner of the camp, in which the rations were cooked for the sick and convalescent. By this time our appetites had become the largest part of us. It seemed to me that I could eat anything, from a dog to a sawhorse, which was an indication that my health was improving.