prisoners. In spite of an
agreement at Washington to the contrary, our chaplain was held as
prisoner of war, the only spiritual adviser in uniform, so far as I
know, who had that honor. I do not know but his reverence would have
agreed with Scott's pirate-lieutenant, that it was better to live as
plain Jack Bunce than die as Frederick Altamont; but I am very sure that
he would rather have been kept prisoner to the close of the war, as a
combatant, than have been released on parole as a non-resistant.

After his return, I remember, he gave the most animated accounts of the
whole adventure, of which he had enjoyed every instant, from the first
entrance on the enemy's soil to the final capture. I suppose we should
all like to tap the telegraphic wires anywhere and read our neighbor's
messages, if we could only throw round this process the dignity of a
Sacred Cause. This was what our good chaplain had done, with the same
conscientious zest with which he had conducted his Sunday foraging in
Florida. But he told me that nothing so impressed him on the whole trip
as the sudden transformation in the black soldier who was taken prisoner
with him. The chaplain at once adopted the policy, natural to him, of
talking boldly and even defiantly to his captors, and commanding instead
of beseeching. He pursued the same policy always and gained by it, he
thought. But the negro adopted the diametrically opposite policy, also
congenial to his crushed race,--all the force seemed to go out of him,
and he surrendered himself like a tortoise to be kicked and trodden upon
at their will. This manly, well-trained soldier at once became a
slave again, asked no questions, and, if any were asked, made meek and
conciliatory answers. He did not know, nor did any of us know, whether
he would be treated as a prisoner of war, or shot, or sent to a
rice-plantation. He simply acted according to the traditions of his
race, as did the chaplain on his side. In the end the soldier's cunning
was vindicated by the result; he escaped, and rejoined us in six months,
while the chaplain was imprisoned for a year.

The men came back very much exhausted from this expedition, and those
who were in the chaplain's squad narrowly escaped with their lives. One
brave fellow had actually not a morsel to eat for four days, and then
could keep nothing on his stomach for two days more, so that his life
was despaired of; and yet he brought all his equipments safe into camp.
Som