My first act upon landing and reaching Willard’s Hotel, was to secure the services of a photographer, who took myself and comrade with the chain about our necks, and in our rebel rags, exactly as is represented in the engraving. The next important operation was to clean myself, trim my beard and hair, and make myself fit to go into decent society. This was by no means a small undertaking; but by dint of scrub-brushes, soaps of incredible strength, and exercise of muscle to an indefinite extent, I at last succeeded in accomplishing my objects. As I left the bath-room, I noticed at the other end of the hall, a tall strange gentleman, who, for all I did not recognize him, seemed familiar to me. However, I walked toward him, and he did the same, coming toward me. When I got sufficiently near to address him, I bowed and extended my hand. He did exactly the same. I thought he was behaving very strangely, and with rather a grim smile I drew back and raised myself to my full height. He did exactly the same, and I suddenly discovered that I had been the victim of a huge mirror, and that I had, all the while, been mistaking myself for a clever, gentlemanly-looking old friend of mine. I merely relate this circumstance to prove to the reader, that a man who is unfortunate enough to spend six months in Dixie, is scarcely able to recognize himself upon his return home.

Home! home! that word still sounds with strange music in my ears. Its mention brings before my mind the little cottage in Ohio, with its happy yet anxious faces turned up the road, along which papa must come after being away so many months. Home! ah, that is but another name for the dear being, who, while I lay wounded and languishing in the loathsome jails of a merciless enemy, cared for the sweet babes of the captive, who taught their little lips to add a prayer for papa to their vesper offerings at the mercy-seat, and who, weary with many months of watching, never ceased to treasure in her heart’s holiest recesses him who pens this tribute.

[A] A coincidence here is worthy of notice. On the 18th of June, seven United States soldiers were hung by the rebels at Atlanta, Georgia. They were a part of the celebrated Chattanooga Railroad scouts, sent out on a military excursion by General Mitchell, but who were captured and treated as spies. One of the survivors of the party, Lieut. Wm. Pittenger, gives a full and graphic account of their captivity and imprisonment in a book which every reader of this work should peruse.

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