dressed the prisoners as 'gentlemen.'"

The same kind of unventilated and filthy cattle-cars were employed in
their transportation as had been used in their various previous
removals. All suffered from want of water, air and space. The arrival of
the captives at Columbia took place in the midst of a drenching
rain-storm, and during the entire night, with scarcely any clothing, no
rations, and no shelter, they were exposed to the merciless elements,
while not twenty yards off, in front of their camping ground, glared the
muzzles of a park of loaded artillery. The prisoners, being in a
starving condition, looked the picture of despair. A discovery however
was made of some bacon suspended to the rafters of the building that
enclosed them, in one corner separated by a partition. As the famished
men looked through the bars of a window and saw this tempting food,
their eyes watered, and their inventive faculties were aroused. Hooks,
strings and poles were brought into requisition, and in a short time
most of the meat, by Yankee talent, was transferred from the rafters of
the building to the stomachs of the prisoners!

The day following, they were moved to a spot about two miles from the
town, and bivouacked in an open field, without any shelter whatever.
Surrounded by the usual cordon of sentries, and menaced with the
customary "dead-line," they were turned loose to provide for themselves,
neither axe, spade, nor cooking utensils being supplied them. Two days
after their arrival some corn-meal and _sorghum_ were issued, the latter
a substitute for molasses. A great many suffered from diarrhoea and
dysentery in consequence, and the place from this circumstance acquired
the sobriquet of "Camp Sorghum."

They had no quarters to protect them from the cold November storms, only
huts constructed by themselves of brush and pine boughs. The treatment
at "Camp Sorghum" was so exceptionally brutal, that almost every dark
night starving men would run the guard and risk their lives to escape
dying by inches. Sometimes as many as thirty or forty would run in one
night. Generally some daring fellow would act as _forlorn hope_ and rush
past the sentries, drawing their fire, at the imminent risk of
forfeiting his own life, his comrades joining him before the guards
could reload their rifles. The latter would then fire a volley into the
camp, killing or wounding some of the prisoners. Lieutenant Young, of
the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry, wa