CHAPTER IV.
BRIGHT SPOTS.
Lieut. Walter S. Johnson, of Company I, my regiment, now of Lincoln, Neb., was captured with me, and was one of our number on the march from Mark's Mills, Arkansas, the scene of our undoing, to Tyler, Texas. He was afterwards one of my comrades in an attempt to escape. A couple of his experiences are well worthy of record here, and, while one of them occurred during our absence without leave from the stockade, it is related in this chapter because neither incident came to my knowledge until a recent date, and, both being illustrative of kind treatment received, it seems right to place them in a chapter which may be said to be Lieutenant Johnson's, especially as neither of them otherwise needs particular location in my narrative.
The balance of this chapter is to be understood, without quotation marks, as coming from my comrade:
After we had been on our weary march for a number of days, a man came among the prisoners for the purpose of buying up all greenbacks that were for sale. He did not need much help to carry off his purchases, as we had been previously interviewed by others on the same subject, but without the offer to give an equivalent or even the courtesy to ask whether we had a superfluous quantity. This man, therefore, made a favorable impression, and we became curious to learn his object. He was a genteel, unassuming fellow, and spent two or three days with us, talking to individuals as the opportunity offered. At last I asked him why he was giving $5 of Confederate money for one of ours, when he told me frankly that he expected to go to Vicksburg—then within our lines—to buy medicine for the use of their army.
"Do you think it possible to do this?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," he responded; "I have done so several times already, and there is no trouble about it."
In a moment it flashed across my mind that here was a chance to get a letter through to my loved ones at home, and I said to him:
"Would you have the kindness to take a letter through for me and mail it to my wife when you get to Vicksburg?"
"Oh, certainly," he said; "I can do that just as well as not."