e whole trial void.

All this time we were most intensely anxious to know how military
affairs were progressing in the world without. I had appropriated from
an officer in charge of us, a paper containing the Confederate account
of our chase, which has been given before, and also an admission that
the battle of Shiloh was not so much of a victory as they had at first
supposed. We managed, likewise, to get one or two other papers which
gave the welcome news that our armies were still pressing onward, and
earnestly did we wish and hope that Chattanooga would be reached in
time to effect our deliverance.

But the best item of news we received, was from our old jailor, who,
on one occasion, became too drunk to remember the orders he had
received against telling us anything, and let out the very interesting
fact that General Mitchel had advanced to Bridgeport, only
twenty-eight miles below us, on the Tennessee river, and there had
sorely defeated the rebels, capturing some of the very same men who
had been guarding us a few days before.

This was very cheering, and we began to hope that we, too, would soon
be captured. The officer of the guard was obviously uneasy. All the
time we were in the dungeon, we had been guarded by twenty-six men,
with a captain over them. This was certainly enough to keep
twenty-two, confined and chained as we were, in our place, but we
thought it would be a capital joke should they be captured with us!

But it was not their intention to let us fall into Mitchel's hands. An
order was sent to the captain in charge to prepare us for moving. He
did so; and soon after, we were in the cars, carried down the same
road we came up so rapidly three weeks before.

How beautiful all nature appeared! It was May, and the time we had
spent without one glance at the expansive sky or green earth, had not
been lost in the material world. The landscape had been robed in a
richer verdure, the budding trees had swelled into leafy screens, the
sky was of a softer blue, the birds warbled with new melody, and
everything seemed to wear its holiday dress.

O, the joy! the gladness! of being once more under the canopy of
heaven, and of looking up to its unfathomable depths, with no envious
bars to obstruct our view. Many a time have I passed the month of May,
amidst the most romantic scenery, but never yet did I so deeply feel,
that this is indeed a pleasant world, full of beauty and goodness, as
on that balmy evenin