irst to leave Millen and the first to
reach Blackshear. We were again the first to leave Blackshear. Perhaps
those fellows we left behind then are exchanged. Now, as we've played
ahead every time, with such infernal luck, let's play backward this time,
and try what that brings us."

"But, Lale," (Andrews's nickname--his proper name being Bezaleel), said
I, "we made something by going ahead every time--that is, if we were not
going to be exchanged. By getting into those places first we picked out
the best spots to stay, and got tent-building stuff that those who came
after us could not. And certainly we can never again get into as bad a
place as this is. The chances are that if this does not mean exchange,
it means transfer to a better prison."

But we concluded, as I said above, to reverse our usual order of
procedure and flank back, in hopes that something would favor our escape
to Sherman. Accordingly, we let the first squad go off without us, and
the next, and the next, and so on, till there were only eleven hundred
--mostly those sick in the Hospital--remaining behind. Those who went
away--we afterwards learned, were run down on the cars to Wilmington, and
afterwards up to Goldsboro, N. C.

For a week or more we eleven hundred tenanted the Stockade, and by
burning up the tents of those who had gone had the only decent,
comfortable fires we had while in Florence. In hunting around through
the tents for fuel we found many bodies of those who had died as their
comrades were leaving. As the larger portion of us could barely walk,
the Rebels paroled us to remain inside of the Stockade or within a few
hundred yards of the front of it, and took the guards off. While these
were marching down, a dozen or more of us, exulting in even so much
freedom as we had obtained, climbed on the Hospital shed to see what the
outlook was, and perched ourselves on the ridgepole. Lieutenant Barrett
came along, at a distance of two hundred yards, with a squad of guards.
Observing us, he halted his men, faced them toward us, and they leveled
their guns as if to fire. He expected to see us tumble down in ludicrous
alarm, to avoid the bullets. But we hated him and them so bad, that we
could not give them the poor satisfaction of scaring us. Only one of our
party attempted to slide down, but the moment we swore at him he came
back and took his seat with folded arms alongside of us. Barrett gave
the order to fire, and the bullet