After my interview with the Confederate major, I was taken up stairs again into my portion of the prison, and told my fellow-prisoners of my good luck. There were six others to whom the same glorious news was imparted. Of course it was the topic of conversation from that time on during the rest of the day and evening. Many of the prisoners took advantage of the opportunity to send letters home by us, and wrote much longer communications than were allowed, we agreeing to secrete them about our persons, and carry them away surreptitiously. They could thus write many things about themselves and their condition that would not pass muster, going through the captain's hands.
I did not sleep a wink that night. The excitement of the news which I had received would not permit me to close my eyes. I might say here, speaking of sitting up nearly all night, that we had no lights in the prison, and when night came on, we had to sit in the darkness until we were ready to lie down upon the floor. Occasionally we would indulge in the luxury of a tallow candle of the poorest quality, for which we paid a dollar in Confederate money. Sometimes a pine knot would be found among the wood which the cooks used. This we would take up into the jail and light in the evening. Of course it afforded light, but it also filled the room with clouds of smoke which escaped through the broken windows. Next morning our faces would be covered with soot.
To come back to the matter of my exchange, on the afternoon of the next day I was duly liberated, with my six companions, and marched to a freight train. I remember that it was a cold day for that region, and that snow was falling. It was the only snow, as I recollect, that we had during the time I was a prisoner. The train of cars soon started on its way to Charleston, S. C. A large number of prisoners were gathered at various points, coming from Andersonville and Florence. We reached Charleston early the next morning, and were marched across the city to the wharves.
Charleston was completely abandoned by its inhabitants because of the siege on the part of our forces, and it was the most desolate looking place I have ever seen in all my life. The damages inflicted by shot and shell were to be seen on every hand. The grass had actually grown in the streets of Charleston, although at the time we were passing through, a light snow was on the ground, adding to the desolation of the scene. General Toombs of Georgia had threatened before the war began that the South would make grass grow in the streets of Boston, and that he would call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill. Grass actually did grow in the streets of Charleston as a result of the war.
Arriving at the wharves, we were placed on board of a steam vessel, which proved to be a blockade runner, and were carried out to a fleet of vessels under the walls of Fort Sumter, which our government had provided for the transport of prisoners. I was placed on board a ship called the United States, with a number of my fellow-prisoners. Those of us who were officers were assigned by the captain of the ship to staterooms. We found that there were nine hundred prisoners on board from Andersonville and Florence, some of them in the last stages of emaciation. Two or three of them died on the voyage from Charleston to Annapolis, and their bodies were buried in the sea. The Sanitary Commission had an agent on board, with an ample supply of underclothing. I at once got rid of the clothing which I had worn so long in the prison, throwing it overboard, and accepted with alacrity the new and clean clothing given me by the agent of the Sanitary Commission.
We lay at anchor one night in Charleston harbor, and the next day sailed for Annapolis, Md. Arriving at that point, we found each prisoner had been granted a thirty days' leave of absence. I telegraphed my father of my arrival at Annapolis, and found, on reaching home, that he could hardly bring himself to believe it.
We went from Annapolis to Washington to obtain our pay, which had been accumulating during the period of our imprisonment. I purchased new clothing, and then joyfully started for home. I had served nearly three years, and my regiment had been mustered out of service during the period of my imprisonment, its time having expired. Some of its members had re-enlisted, and were consolidated with the Seventh Rhode Island; but I felt that I had done my duty, and that I was entitled to withdraw from the service, so I sent in my resignation direct to the Secretary of War at Washington, accompanying it with a surgeon's certificate of my health, and setting forth the facts of my service and my imprisonment. I obtained the endorsement of the Governor of the State to my application, and it came back in a few days accepted, and I was out of the service. I have often felt that I would have been tempted to return had I known that the war would end as soon as it subsequently did, so as to have had the satisfaction of being in at the close, if possible.
I have never regretted my being in the army during that most trying and critical period of our country. I feel as did the Westerner who said that he would not part with his experiences for a hundred thousand dollars, and he would not go through with it again for a hundred million.