At the age of thirteen a perusal of the lives of Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greeley precipitated my determination to no longer hesitate in launching my small bark upon the great ocean.  I ran away from home in a truly romantic way, and placed my foot on what I expected to be the first round of the ladder of fame, by becoming “devil boy” in a printing office in a distant large City.  Charley’s attachment to his mother and his home was too strong to permit him to take this step, and we parted in sorrow, mitigated on my side by roseate dreams of the future.

Six years passed.  One hot August morning I met an old acquaintance at the Creek, in Andersonville.  He told me to come there the next morning, after roll-call, and he would take me to see some person who was very anxious to meet me.  I was prompt at the rendezvous, and was soon joined by the other party.  He threaded his way slowly for over half an hour through the closely-jumbled mass of tents and burrows, and at length stopped in front of a blanket-tent in the northwestern corner.  The occupant rose and took my hand.  For an instant I was puzzled; then the clear, blue eyes, and well-remembered smile recalled to me my old-time comrade, Charley Barbour.  His story was soon told.  He was a Sergeant in a Western Virginia cavalry regiment—­the Fourth, I think.  At the time Hunter was making his retreat from the Valley of Virginia, it was decided to mislead the enemy by sending out a courier with false dispatches to be captured.  There was a call for a volunteer for this service.  Charley was the first to offer, with that spirit of generous self-sacrifice that was one of his pleasantest traits when a boy.  He knew what he had to expect.  Capture meant imprisonment at Andersonville; our men had now a pretty clear understanding of what this was.  Charley took the dispatches and rode into the enemy’s lines.  He was taken, and the false information produced the desired effect.  On his way to Andersonville he was stripped of all his clothing but his shirt and pantaloons, and turned into the Stockade in this condition.  When I saw him he had been in a week or more.  He told his story quietly—­almost diffidently—­not seeming aware that he had done more than his simple duty.  I left him with the promise and expectation of returning the next day, but when I attempted to find him again, I was lost in the maze of tents and burrows.  I had forgotten to ask the number of his detachment, and after spending several days in hunting for him, I was forced to give the search up.  He knew as little of my whereabouts, and though we were all the time within seventeen hundred feet of each other, neither we nor our common acquaintance could ever manage to meet again.  This will give the reader an idea of the throng compressed within the narrow limits of the Stockade.  After leaving Andersonville, however, I met this man once more, and learned from him that Charley had sickened and died within a month after his entrance to prison.