Every one else procured such amusement as they could.  Newcomers, who still had money and cards, gambled as long as their means lasted.  Those who had books read them until the leaves fell apart.  Those who had paper and pen and ink tried to write descriptions and keep journals, but this was usually given up after being in prison a few weeks.  I was fortunate enough to know a boy who had brought a copy of “Gray’s Anatomy” into prison with him.  I was not specially interested in the subject, but it was Hobson’s choice; I could read anatomy or nothing, and so I tackled it with such good will that before my friend became sick and was taken outside, and his book with him, I had obtained a very fair knowledge of the rudiments of physiology.

There was a little band of devoted Christian workers, among whom were Orderly Sergeant Thomas J. Sheppard, Ninety-Seventh O. Y. L, now a leading Baptist minister in Eastern Ohio; Boston Corbett, who afterward slew John Wilkes Booth, and Frank Smith, now at the head of the Railroad Bethel work at Toledo.  They were indefatigable in trying to evangelize the prison.  A few of them would take their station in some part of the Stockade (a different one every time), and begin singing some old familiar hymn like: 

“Come, Thou fount of every blessing,”

and in a few minutes they would have an attentive audience of as many thousand as could get within hearing.  The singing would be followed by regular services, during which Sheppard, Smith, Corbett, and some others would make short, spirited, practical addresses, which no doubt did much good to all who heard them, though the grains of leaven were entirely too small to leaven such an immense measure of meal.  They conducted several funerals, as nearly like the way it was done at home as possible.  Their ministrations were not confined to mere lip service, but they labored assiduously in caring for the sick, and made many a poor fellow’s way to the grave much smoother for him.

This was about all the religious services that we were favored with.  The Rebel preachers did not make that effort to save our misguided souls which one would have imagined they would having us where we could not choose but hear they might have taken advantage of our situation to rake us fore and aft with their theological artillery.  They only attempted it in one instance.  While in Richmond a preacher came into our room and announced in an authoritative way that he would address us on religious subjects.  We uncovered respectfully, and gathered around him.  He was a loud-tongued, brawling Boanerges, who addressed the Lord as if drilling a brigade.

He spoke but a few moments before making apparent his belief that the worst of crimes was that of being a Yankee, and that a man must not only be saved through Christ’s blood, but also serve in the Rebel army before he could attain to heaven.

Of course we raised such a yell of derision that the sermon was brought to an abrupt conclusion.