In these elegant and commodious vehicles we were transported next day till we reached Greensboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after three days' living burial, we were placed in the beautiful open square, and never before did air, earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they gave each of us three horny crackers, "rebel hardtack," out of which some of us carved finger rings that might have passed for bone.
In those days I was too much addicted to making public speeches, a habit which I had contracted in Yale College. On the edge of the public green, backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing a crowd of curious spectators, telling them how abominably we were treated, exhibiting to them our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning them all to everlasting perdition, when a well-dressed young man elbowed his way to me at the fence. He had a large black shiny haversack swung under his left arm. Patting it with his right hand, he asked:
"Will you have a snack?"
"A what?" I answered.
"A snack, a snack," he said.
"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a snake. Yes, I think I could eat a copperhead—cooked. Snake for one, if you please; well done."
He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out and gave me the most delicious sandwich I ever tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow prisoners. He told me he was just starting on a long journey, and had laid in a good stock of provisions. I took pains to write in my journal his name and residence—"George W. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the Court House." To which I added "Vir et Amicus."—"The blessing of him that was ready to perish" was upon George W. Swepson.
That night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the open sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.
Next morning we reëntered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought us at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination, Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four Hundred" passed into the dark enclosure, we were greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" which in those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field officers were quartered that night in a brick building near the entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what appeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves, robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally, maddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious appellation of Muggers! We had been warned against them by kindly disposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with clubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched headlong downstairs. "Muggers!"
Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury penitentiary," was in the general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and four or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a space of about four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had formerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a stout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three feet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other side, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five rods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the whole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted field-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that behind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant soldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside there were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain from seven hundred to two thousand in all.