veterans.  Those at Florence were guarded by boy companies, under command of Colonel Williams, the former commander of the Third South Carolina.  The stockades, as the prison pens were called, consisted of tall pine trees set into the ground some six or eight feet, standing upright and adjoining.  The space thus enclosed covered several acres or as much more as there were prisoners or troops to guard them.  The stockade fence was about fifteen feet above the level of the ground, with a walk way three feet from the top, on which the guards watched.  There was a “dead line” some fifteen or twenty paces from the inside of the wall, over which no prisoner was allowed to cross, on penalty of being shot.  And to prevent any collusion between the prisoners and the guard, none were permitted to speak to the sentinels under any circumstances.  To better carry out these orders, the soldier Who detected a prisoner speaking to a guard and shot him, a thirty days’ furlough was given as an acknowledgment of his faithful observance of orders.  On more occasions than one the prisoners in their attempt to draw inexperienced guards into a conversation, and perhaps offer a bribe, met their death instantly.  Inside the enclosure some of the prisoners huddled under little tents or blankets, but the greater number burrowed under the ground like moles or prairie dogs.  Numbers made their escape by tunnelling under the wall.

When Sherman began his march through Georgia, the major portion at Andersonville were removed to Salisbury, N.C., where a great national cemetery was set apart after the war, and kept under the authority of the war department, containing thousands of graves—­monuments to the sufferings and death of these unfortunate people—­a sacrifice to what their government called a “military necessity.”  Our prisoners were scattered in like manner at Camp Chase, in Ohio; Fort Johnston, in Lake Michigan; Fort Delaware, in the Delaware River; and many other places, subject to greater sufferings and hardships than the Federal prisoners in our hands.

The Government of the South had nothing to do but accept the conditions imposed upon the sufferers by the authorities in Washington.

In January, 1865, rumors were rife in camp of the transfer of some of the South Carolina troops to their own State to help swell the little band that was at that time fighting on the flanks and front of Sherman.  Of course it was not possible that all could be spared from Lee, but it had become a certain fact, if judged from the rumors in camp, that some at least were to be transferred.  So when orders came for Kershaw’s Brigade to break camp and march to Richmond, all were overjoyed.  Outside of the fact that we were to be again on our “native heath” and fight the invader on our own soil, the soldiers of Kershaw’s Brigade felt not a little complimented at being selected as the brigade to be placed at such a post of honor.  It is a settled feeling among all troops and a pardonable