We can talk lightly of a flag as being only a distinguishing mark or emblem, but its true emblematic character is not realized until some occasion arises to impress upon us what is meant by the flag of our country.
When my gaze rested upon that shot-torn flag all the memories of its associations flashed through my mind in an instant, as well as the full realization of what its possession would mean to us and what its absence signified. Words cannot express my feelings. I looked around me for a moment, and, meeting the eye of one of our men looking at me, his countenance twitching and his eyes filled with tears, I broke down completely and sobbed like a child for a few minutes.
O ye men, who have only looked upon our country's flag as a pretty emblem! You, who only think of it as a necessary distinguishing mark among nations! And the many who never think of it as anything except a piece of bunting! Be ye once in a position where inability to possess that strip of colored fabric means privation, loss of liberty, separation from home and friends, possibly death, and you will then realize what it means to you as no language can depict!
CHAPTER III.
ON THE MARCH.
After the rebels had paraded and counted us to their entire satisfaction, the prisoners were started on a march to the Washita river. The start was made late in the day, and we were marched fifty-two miles before a halt was ordered on the bank of the river, at a one-wagon ferry, about 4 o'clock the next afternoon. The commander of the forces in charge of the prisoners was a genial, plausible colonel named Hill, who was possessed of a red head and the ability to hold us together by assuring us of our parole when we arrived at our destination. He and his men were very friendly and treated us well; so we marched along, in high hopes of a parole and with excuses for the lack of food during our journey. The prisoners were ferried across the river that night, and we burrowed in the sand on the river bank for sleeping accommodations until morning, but were awakened about 11 o'clock by a call for dinner. We had received nothing to eat up to this time, and had no objections to the hour selected, but we were regaled with cornmeal mush, the quantity apparently being determined upon with a due regard for the supposed ill-effect of too much food in the case of men who were extremely hungry. The negroes who accompanied us were more hungry than we, and the rebels were so careful of them as to give them nothing to eat at this halt.
I found out afterwards that their apparent fear of overloading hungry stomachs developed in an exact proportion to the scarcity of food among the rebels, and it is but justice to say that they exhibited the same regard for their own health that they did for ours.
The next morning we breakfasted upon the memories of our meal of the previous night, and at this time I noticed a pitiful scene. Several negro children, scarcely old enough to talk, were going from fire to fire and poking among the ashes with sticks, their great eyes rolling around at us as if they were committing some depredation. On closer observation, it was found that ears of corn had in some way gotten into the possession of some of us, and that they had been roasted in some of the fires. The children were hunting for the stray kernels of corn left in the ashes, and were greedily eating them when found.