friends. I die happy. God bless you.

"Your husband,

"H. W. VARNEY."

The friends of many came as soon as they heard of their arrival and
illness, but often failed to recognize them. One woman, on being taken
into the ward where her husband was asleep, persisted in saying that she
had never seen that man before; and on being shown his name and regiment
on the card, she refused to be convinced, feeling sure that there must
be some mistake, till he opened his eyes and greeted her by name.

On the evening of a day on which there had been a new arrival of men, I
was sitting in the comfortably heated tent, while eight happy faces
looked from the warmly blanketed beds. Each man had his own tale of
prison experience to tell. "Not for all the gold that could be heaped
into this tent would I voluntarily spend one more day at Andersonville."
Another said, "We suffered enough in body; but the mental agony, the
mental agony, no one can ever imagine." And so they went on, dwelling at
last upon their anxiety for home friends, wondering if mothers, wives,
and children were yet alive. Then one manly voice told, in earnest
tones, how he could bless the Lord for the perilous trials through which
he had passed; that he had been brought up religiously, but never had
truly loved the Saviour until he became his only refuge. "His love in my
heart is well worth all the discipline I have endured, and I can thank
him for it." These words came from John S. Farnell, a Michigan boy of
eighteen years of age. Since the battle of Gettysburg, seventeen months
before, he had been a prisoner. He enjoyed reading his own little new
Bible, and the meetings for prayer and singing held in his tent. He
seemed to be gaining strength, until an attack of pneumonia occurred,
when the utmost care failed to save his life. He talked peacefully of
dying, in intervals of consciousness, but at last sank into a heavy
stupor. Just as I closed his eyes, and while he ceased to breathe, the
band struck up the strain, "Do they miss me at home?"

It needed a stout heart to turn from the frequent scenes of death, at
that gloomy time, to cheer and amuse the less dangerously ill. The
coming of Christmas was a source of excitement for a few days. Some of
the boys had never heard of Santa Claus and his visits down the chimney
at this merry season; and when his descent through the pipes, and
passage through the stove-doors, and appearance in the tents became
possib