Carolina, and yet that mystery was never explained.  Mrs. Mary Howard!  Grand, noble, heroic, Christian woman!  “She hath done what she could.”  Through her agency and her means and her efforts she not only assisted and relieved me, but hundreds of other poor, helpless Confederate prisoners.  To-day she is reaping her sublime reward, where there are no suffering hungry, starving prisoners to relieve.  God bless her descendants!

When General Lee surrendered we refused to believe it, notwithstanding the prison was flooded with various newspapers announcing the fact, and the nearby cities were illuminated, the big guns were belching forth their terrific thunder in joy of the event.  However, the truth gradually dawned upon us, and we were forced to realize what we at first thought impossible—­that Lee would be forced to surrender.  A few days later we were all ordered into line, and officially notified of General Lee’s surrender.  The futility of further resistence was emphasized, and we were urgently requested to take the oath of Allegiance to the United States Government.  This was “a bitter pill,” “the yellow pup,” to swallow, and a very few solemnly complied.  The great majority still had a forlorn hope.  Generals Johnston, Kirby Smith, Mosby, and others were still in the field, and it seemed to be a tacit understanding, that we would never take the oath of allegiance as long as one Confederate officer contended in the field.

Finally, when there was no disguising the fact that General Johnston and all others had honorably surrendered—­that all was lost—­on the 19th day of June, 1865, the last batch of officers in prison took the oath of allegiance to the United States Government, bade farewell to Fort Delaware, and inscribed on its walls, on its fences, in books, and divisions the French quotation, “Font est perdeu l’honeur”—­All is lost but honor.

    “A prison!  Heavens, I loath the hated name,
    Famine’s metropolis, the sink of shame,
    A nauseous sepulchre, whose craving womb
    Hourly inters poor mortals in its tomb;
    By ev’ry plague and ev’ry ill possessed,
    Ev’n purgatory itself to thee’s a jest;
    Emblem of hell, nursery of vice,
    Thou crawling university of lice;
    When wretches numberless to ease their pains,
    With smoke and all delude their pensive chains. 
    How shall I avoid thee? or with what spell
    Dissolve the enchantment of thy magic cell? 
    Ev’n Fox himself can’t boast so many martyrs,
    As yearly fall within thy wretched quarters. 
    Money I’ve none, and debts I cannot pay,
    Unless my vermin, will those debts defray. 
    Not scolding wife, nor inquisition’s worse;
    Thou’rt ev’ry mischief crammed into one curse.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Leave the Valley for the Last Time—­October 20th to December 31st, 1864.