There was no hope left for us but to try to pass the Surgeons as desperately sick, and we expended our energies in simulating this condition.  Rheumatism was our forte, and I flatter myself we got up two cases that were apparently bad enough to serve as illustrations for a patent medicine advertisement.  But it would not do.  Bad as we made our condition appear, there were so many more who were infinitely worse, that we stood no show in the competitive examination.  I doubt if we would have been given an average of “50” in a report.  We had to stand back, and see about one quarter of our number march out and away home.  We could not complain at this—­much as we wanted to go ourselves, since there could be no question that these poor fellows deserved the precedence.  We did grumble savagely, however, at Captain Bowes’s venality, in selling out chances to moneyed men, since these were invariably those who were best prepared to withstand the hardships of imprisonment, as they were mostly new men, and all had good clothes and blankets.  We did not blame the men, however, since it was not in human nature to resist an opportunity to get away—­at any cost-from that accursed place.  “All that a man hath he will give for his life,” and I think that if I had owned the City of New York in fee simple, I would have given it away willingly, rather than stand in prison another month.

The sutlers, to whom I have alluded above, had accumulated sufficient to supply themselves with all the necessaries and some of the comforts of life, during any probable term of imprisonment, and still have a snug amount left, but they, would rather give it all up and return to service with their regiments in the field, than take the chances of any longer continuance in prison.

I can only surmise how much Bowes realized out of the prisoners by his venality, but I feel sure that it could not have been less than three thousand dollars, and I would not be astonished to learn that it was ten thousand dollars in green.

CHAPTER LXIV.

Another removal—­Sherman’s advance scares the rebels into running us away from Millen—­we are taken to Savannah, and thence down the Atlantic & Gulf road to Blackshear

One night, toward the last of November, there was a general alarm around the prison.  A gun was fired from the Fort, the long-roll was beaten in the various camps of the guards, and the regiments answered by getting under arms in haste, and forming near the prison gates.

The reason for this, which we did not learn until weeks later, was that Sherman, who had cut loose from Atlanta and started on his famous March to the Sea, had taken such a course as rendered it probable that Millen was one of his objective points.  It was, therefore, necessary that we should be hurried away with all possible speed.  As we had had no news from Sherman since the end of the Atlanta campaign, and were ignorant of his having begun his great raid, we were at an utter loss to account for the commotion among our keepers.