Such was the case with my own group after the lapse of about two months. We had been pinched; but one morning Captain Cook came to me with radiant face and said: "Colonel, I have good news for you. I'm going to run this mess. My folks in New York have made arrangement with friends in England to supply me with money, and I've just received through the lines a hundred dollars. We'll live like fighting-cocks!" Adjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was our delighted cook. Shivering for an hour over the big kettle amid the ice and snow of the back yard, he would send up word, "Colonel, set the table for dinner." To "set the table" consisted in sweeping a space six or eight feet square, and depositing there the plates, wood, tin, or earthen (mine was of wood; it had cost me a week's labor in carving). The officers already mentioned, Cook, Clark, Bush, Sprague, with Lieut. E. H. Wilder, 9th N. Y. Cav., sit around in the elegant Turkish fashion, or more classical recline like the ancients in their symposia, each resting on his left elbow, with face as near as possible to the steaming kettle, that not a smell may be lost!
Wood was scarce. It was used with most rigid economy. Many joists overhead had been sawed off by Lieut. Lewis R. Titus of the Corps D'Afrique, using a notched table-knife for a saw. In this way the Vermont Yankee obtained pieces for cooking, but he weakened the structure till some officers really feared the roof might come tumbling about our heads; and I remember that the prison commandant, visiting the upper room and gazing heavenward, more than once ejaculated irreverently the name of the opposite region!
Through the kindness of a Confederate officer or bribing the guards a log four or five feet in length is sometimes brought in. Two or three instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop to start the cleaving, and in less time than one could expect such a work to be done with axes it is split fine with wooden wedges.
Naturally one of the ever-recurring topics of discussion was the glorious dishes we could prepare, if we but had the materials, or of which we would partake if we ever got home again. In our memorandum books we are careful to note down the street and number of the most famous restaurant in each of the largest cities, like Delmonico's in New York or Young's in Boston.
With few exceptions one day is like another. At earliest dawn each of the two floors is covered with about a hundred and seventy-five prostrate forms of officers who have been trying to sleep. Soon some one of them calls in a loud voice. "Buckets for water!" The call is repeated. Five or six, who have predetermined to go early to the river Dan that seemed nearly a quarter of a mile distant, start up and seize large wooden pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of them says to the sentinel on duty at the southwest corner door, "Sentry, call the sergeant of the guard; we want to go for water." He complies. In five, ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned officer, with some half a dozen heavily armed soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing, our squad passes out. They are escorted down the hill to the river, and back to prison. By this time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying silent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are washing, or rather wiping with wet handkerchief, face and hands; others are preparing to cook, splitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters; a few are nibbling corn bread; here and there one is reading the New Testament. There is no change or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the same as the day dress. We no longer wonder how the cured paralytic in Scripture could obey the command, "Take up thy bed and walk"; for at heaviest the bed is but a blanket!
Now, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin that have plagued us during the night! We daily solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to "What luck?" the question which puzzled to death
"The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle,"
"As many as we caught we left; as many as we could not catch we carry with us!"
About eight o'clock the cry is heard from the southwest end of the room, "Fall in for roll-call! fall in!" to which several would impudently add, "Here he comes! here he is!" A tall, slim, stooping, beardless, light-haired phenomenon, known as "the roll-call sergeant," enters with two musketeers. We officers having formed in two ranks on the northwest side of the room, he passes down the front from left to right slowly counting. Setting down the number in a memorandum book, he commands in a squeaky feminine voice, "Break ranks," which most of us have already done. Much speculation arose as to the nature and status of this singular being. His face was smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled, so that it was impossible to tell whether he was fifteen or fifty. A committee was said to have waited upon him, and with much apparent deference asked him as to his nativity, his age, and whether he was human or divine, married or single, man or woman. They said he answered sadly, "Alas! I'm no angel, but a married man, thirty-seven years old, from South Carolina. I have three children who resemble me."
Immediately after roll-call, corn bread is brought in for breakfast. It is in large squares about two feet in length and breadth, the top of each square being marked for cutting into twenty or twenty-five rations. Colonel Hooper and Capt. D. Tarbell receive the whole from the rebel commissary, and then distribute to each mess its portion. The mess commissary endeavors to cut it into equal oblong loaves. To make sure of a fair distribution, one officer turns his back, and one after another lays his hand upon a loaf and asks, "Whose is this?" The officer who has faced about names some one as the recipient.