nd made it difficult to proceed with our work
of distribution. There were two little fires of chips and splinters on
bricks, one of them near the middle, the other near the far end. In
contact with these were tin or earthen cups containing what passed for
food or drink. There was no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and
faces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all.

This prison was the worst. It was colder than the others. But all were
uncomfortably cold. All were filled with smoke and lice. From each there
went every day to the hospital a wagon-load of half-starved and
broken-hearted soldiers who would never return. I visited the hospital
to deliver to two of the patients letters which Colonel Smith had handed
to me for them. They were both dead. I looked down the long list. The
word "Died," with the date, was opposite most of the names. As I left
the hospital I involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expecting to
see inscribed there as over the gate to Dante's Hell,

ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!

At the rate our enlisted men were dying at Danville and Salisbury during
the winter of 1864-65, all would have passed away in a few months,
certainly in less than a year; AND THEY KNEW IT.

Is it any wonder that some of them, believing our government had
abandoned them to starvation rather than again risk its popularity by
resorting to conscription for the enrollment of recruits and by possibly
stirring up draft riots such as had cost more than a thousand lives in
the city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last the terms which the
Confederates constantly held out to them, took the oath of allegiance to
the Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was credibly informed
that more than forty did it in Prison No. Four at Danville, and more
than eleven hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting officers and
sergeants were busy in those prisons, offering them the choice between
death and life. No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Confederate
flag with full determination to desert to our lines at the first
convenient opportunity. Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co.
A, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North Carolina. _The great
majority chose to die._

The last communication that I received from enlisted men of my
battalion, fellow prisoners with me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted
not to accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be true to their
country and