I might as well have reasoned with a cigar store Indian.  He set his teeth, his eyes showed a dangerous amount of white, and foreshortening his musket for a lunge, he hissed out again “Put dat right back dah, I tell you!”

I looked at the bayonet; it was very long, very bright, and very sharp.  It gleamed cold and chilly like, as if it had not run through a man for a long time, and yearned for another opportunity.  Nothing but the whites of the darky’s eyes could now be seen.  I did not want to perish there in the fresh bloom of my youth and loveliness; it seemed to me as if it was my duty to reserve myself for fields of future usefulness, so I walked back and laid the book cover precisely on the spot whence I had obtained it, while the thousand boys in the house set up a yell of sarcastic laughter.

We staid in Wilmington a few days, days of almost purely animal enjoyment—­the joy of having just as much to eat as we could possibly swallow, and no one to molest or make us afraid in any way.  How we did eat and fill up.  The wrinkles in our skin smoothed out under the stretching, and we began to feel as if we were returning to our old plumpness, though so far the plumpness was wholly abdominal.

One morning we were told that the transports would begin going back with us that afternoon, the first that left taking the sick.  Andrews and I, true to our old prison practices, resolved to be among those on the first boat.  We slipped through the guards and going up town, went straight to Major General Schofield’s headquarters and solicited a pass to go on the first boat—­the steamer “Thorn.”  General Schofield treated us very kindly; but declined to let anybody but the helplessly sick go on the “Thorn.”  Defeated here we went down to where the vessel was lying at the dock, and tried to smuggle ourselves aboard, but the guard was too strong and too vigilant, and we were driven away.  Going along the dock, angry and discouraged by our failure, we saw a Surgeon, at a little distance, who was examining and sending the sick who could walk aboard another vessel—­the “General Lyon.”  We took our cue, and a little shamming secured from him tickets which permitted us to take our passage in her.  The larger portion of those on board were in the hold, and a few were on deck.  Andrews and I found a snug place under the forecastle, by the anchor chains.

Both vessels speedily received their complement, and leaving their docks, started down the river.  The “Thorn” steamed ahead of us, and disappeared.  Shortly after we got under way, the Colonel who was put in command of the boat—­himself a released prisoner—­came around on a tour of inspection.  He found about one thousand of us aboard, and singling me out made me the non-commissioned officer in command.  I was put in charge, of issuing the rations and of a barrel of milk punch which the Sanitary Commission had sent down to be dealt out on the voyage to such as needed it.  I went to work and arranged the boys in the best way I could, and returned to the deck to view the scenery.