But Kilpatrick, like Sherman, came not.  Perhaps he knew that all the prisoners had been removed from the Stockade; perhaps he had other business of more importance on hand; probably his movement was only a feint.  At all events it was definitely known the next day that he had withdrawn so far as to render it wholly unlikely that he intended attacking Florence, so we were brought back and returned to our old quarters.  For a week or more we loitered about the now nearly-abandoned prison; skulked and crawled around the dismal mud-tents like the ghostly denizens of some Potter’s Field, who, for some reason had been allowed to return to earth, and for awhile creep painfully around the little hillocks beneath which they had been entombed.

A few score, whose vital powers were strained to the last degree of tension, gave up the ghost, and sank to dreamless rest.  It mattered now little to these when Sherman came, or when Kilpatrick’s guidons should flutter through the forest of sighing pines, heralds of life, happiness, and home—­

               After life’s fitful fever they slept well
               Treason had done its worst.  Nor steel nor poison: 
               Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
               Could touch them farther.

One day another order came for us to be loaded on the cars, and over to the railroad we went again in the same fashion as before.  The comparatively few of us who were still able to walk at all well, loaded ourselves down with the bundles and blankets of our less fortunate companions, who hobbled and limped—­many even crawling on their hands and knees—­over the hard, frozen ground, by our sides.

Those not able to crawl even, were taken in wagons, for the orders were imperative not to leave a living prisoner behind.

At the railroad we found two trains awaiting us.  On the front of each engine were two rude white flags, made by fastening the halves of meal sacks to short sticks.  The sight of these gave us some hope, but our belief that Rebels were constitutional liars and deceivers was so firm and fixed, that we persuaded ourselves that the flags meant nothing more than some wilful delusion for us.

Again we started off in the direction of Wilmington, and traversed the same country described in the previous chapter.  Again Andrews and I found ourselves in the next box car to the passenger coach containing the Rebel officers.  Again we cut a hole through the end, with our saw, and again found a darky servant sitting on the rear platform.  Andrews went out and sat down alongside of him, and found that he was seated upon a large gunny-bag sack containing the cooked rations of the Rebel officers.

The intelligence that there was something there worth taking Andrews communicated to me by an expressive signal, of which soldiers campaigning together as long as he and I had, always have an extensive and well understood code.