The sending of the sick through gave our commandant—­Captain Bowes—­a fine opportunity to fill his pockets, by conniving at the passage of well men.  There was still considerable money in the hands of a few prisoners.  All this, and more, too, were they willing to give for their lives.  In the first batch that went away were two of the leading sutlers at Andersonville, who had accumulated perhaps one thousand dollars each by their shrewd and successful bartering.  It was generally believed that they gave every cent to Bowes for the privilege of leaving.  I know nothing of the truth of this, but I am reasonably certain that they paid him very handsomely.

Soon we heard that one hundred and fifty dollars each had been sufficient to buy some men out; then one hundred, seventy-five, fifty, thirty, twenty, ten, and at last five dollars.  Whether the upright Bowes drew the line at the latter figure, and refused to sell his honor for less than the ruling rates of a street-walker’s virtue, I know not.  It was the lowest quotation that came to my knowledge, but he may have gone cheaper.  I have always observed that when men or women begin to traffic in themselves, their price falls as rapidly as that of a piece of tainted meat in hot weather.  If one could buy them at the rate they wind up with, and sell them at their first price, there would be room for an enormous profit.

The cheapest I ever knew a Rebel officer to be bought was some weeks after this at Florence.  The sick exchange was still going on.  I have before spoken of the Rebel passion for bright gilt buttons.  It used to be a proverbial comment upon the small treasons that were of daily occurrence on both sides, that you could buy the soul of a mean man in our crowd for a pint of corn meal, and the soul of a Rebel guard for a half dozen brass buttons.  A boy of the Fifth-fourth Ohio, whose home was at or near Lima, O., wore a blue vest, with the gilt, bright-trimmed buttons of a staff officer.  The Rebel Surgeon who was examining the sick for exchange saw the buttons and admired them very much.  The boy stepped back, borrowed a knife from a comrade, cut the buttons off, and handed them to the Doctor.

“All right, sir,” said he as his itching palm closed over the coveted ornaments; “you can pass,” and pass he did to home and friends.

Captain Bowes’s merchandizing in the matter of exchange was as open as the issuing of rations.  His agent in conducting the bargaining was a Raider—­a New York gambler and stool-pigeon—­whom we called “Mattie.”  He dealt quite fairly, for several times when the exchange was interrupted, Bowes sent the money back to those who had paid him, and received it again when the exchange was renewed.

Had it been possible to buy our way out for five cents each Andrews and I would have had to stay back, since we had not had that much money for months, and all our friends were in an equally bad plight.  Like almost everybody else we had spent the few dollars we happened to have on entering prison, in a week or so, and since then we had been entirely penniless.