. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the
Court House." To which I added "_Vir et Amicus_."--"The blessing of him
that was ready to perish" was upon George W. Swepson.

That night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the
open sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among
them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.

Next morning we reentered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought
us at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination,
Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four Hundred" passed into the dark
enclosure, we were greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" which
in those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field
officers were quartered that night in a brick building near the
entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what
appeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves,
robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally,
maddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious
appellation of _Muggers_! We had been warned against them by kindly
disposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with
clubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched
headlong downstairs. "_Muggers!_"

Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salisbury penitentiary," was in
the general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty
rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and
four or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a space of
about four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had
formerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a
stout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three
feet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other
side, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five
rods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the
whole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted
field-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that
behind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant
soldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside
there were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain
from seven hundred to two thousand in all.

The number of Union officers in prison after