e. We dug tunnels with the
persistence of beavers, and we watched every possible opportunity to get
outside the accursed walls of the pen. But we could not enlist the
interest of these discouraged ones in any of our schemes, or talk.
They resigned themselves to Death, and waited despondingly till he came.

A middle-aged One Hundred and First Pennsylvanian, who had taken up his
quarters near me, was an object of peculiar interest. Reasonably
intelligent and fairly read, I presume that he was a respectable mechanic
before entering the Army. He was evidently a very domestic man, whose
whole happiness centered in his family.

When he first came in he was thoroughly dazed by the greatness of his
misfortune. He would sit for hours with his face in his hands and his
elbows on his knees, gazing out upon the mass of men and huts, with
vacant, lack-luster eyes. We could not interest him in anything.
We tried to show him how to fix his blanket up to give him some shelter,
but he went at the work in a disheartened way, and finally smiled feebly
and stopped. He had some letters from his family and a melaineotype of a
plain-faced woman--his wife--and her children, and spent much time in
looking at them. At first he ate his rations when he drew them, but
finally began to reject, them. In a few days he was delirious with
hunger and homesick ness. He would sit on the sand for hours imagining
that he was at his family table, dispensing his frugal hospitalities to
his wife and children.

Making a motion, as if presenting a dish, he would say:

"Janie, have another biscuit, do!"

Or,

"Eddie, son, won't you have another piece of this nice steak?"

Or,

"Maggie, have some more potatos," and so on, through a whole family of
six, or more. It was a relief to us when he died in about a month after
he came in.

As stated above, the Plymouth men brought in a large amount of money
--variously estimated at from ten thousand to one hundred thousand dollars.
The presence of this quantity of circulating medium immediately started a
lively commerce. All sorts of devices were resorted to by the other
prisoners to get a little of this wealth. Rude chuck-a-luck boards were
constructed out of such material as was attainable, and put in operation.
Dice and cards were brought out by those skilled in such matters.
As those of us already in the Stockade occupied all the ground, there was
no disposition on the part of many to surrender a