than contempt for these trucklers.  The raider crowd’s favorite theme of conversation with the Rebels was the strong discontent of the boys with the manner of their treatment by our Government.  The assertion that there was any such widespread feeling was utterly false.  We all had confidence—­as we continue to have to this day—­that our Government would do everything for us possible, consistent with its honor, and the success of military operations, and outside of the little squad of which I speak, not an admission could be extracted from anybody that blame could be attached to any one, except the Rebels.  It was regarded as unmanly and unsoldier-like to the last degree, as well as senseless, to revile our Government for the crimes committed by its foes.

But the Rebels were led to believe that we were ripe for revolt against our flag, and to side with them.  Imagine, if possible, the stupidity that would mistake our bitter hatred of those who were our deadly enemies, for any feeling that would lead us to join hands with those enemies.  One day we were surprised to see the carpenters erect a rude stand in the center of the camp.  When it was finished, Bradley appeared upon it, in company with some Rebel officers and guards.  We gathered around in curiosity, and Bradley began making a speech.

He said that it had now become apparent to all of us that our Government had abandoned us; that it cared little or nothing for us, since it could hire as many more quite readily, by offering a bounty equal to the pay which would be due us now; that it cost only a few hundred dollars to bring over a shipload of Irish, “Dutch,” and French, who were only too glad to agree to fight or do anything else to get to this country. [The peculiar impudence of this consisted in Bradley himself being a foreigner, and one who had only come out under one of the later calls, and the influence of a big bounty.]

Continuing in this strain he repeated and dwelt upon the old lie, always in the mouths of his crowd, that Secretary Stanton and General Halleck had positively refused to enter upon negotiations for exchange, because those in prison were “only a miserable lot of ‘coffee-boilers’ and ‘blackberry pickers,’ whom the Army was better off without.”

The terms “coffee-boiler,” and “blackberry-pickers” were considered the worst terms of opprobrium we had in prison.  They were applied to that class of stragglers and skulkers, who were only too ready to give themselves up to the enemy, and who, on coming in, told some gauzy story about “just having stopped to boil a cup of coffee,” or to do something else which they should not have done, when they were gobbled up.  It is not risking much to affirm the probability of Bradley and most of his crowd having belonged to this dishonorable class.

The assertion that either the great Chief-of-Staff or the still greater War-Secretary were even capable of applying such epithets to the mass of prisoners is too preposterous to need refutation, or even denial.  No person outside the raider crowd ever gave the silly lie a moment’s toleration.