n it. These cells were rather smaller than the
cells in which we were habitually confined, and the doors were half a
foot thick, with sheet-iron nailed on the outside, and so contrived that
(extending beyond the edges of the door) it excluded every ray of air
and light. In all seasons, the air within them was stagnant, foul, and
stifling, and would produce violent nausea and headache. In summer,
these places were said to be like heated ovens, and in winter they were
the coldest localities between the South Pole and Labrador. The rations
allowed the inmates of them were a piece of bread about the size of the
back of a pocket account book (and perhaps with as much flavor) and half
a tin-cup full of water, repeated twice a day. If a man's stomach
revolted at the offer of food (after the foul reek of the dungeon) the
crop-eared whelp of a she-wolf (who was boss-inquisitor) would pronounce
him sulky and double his term of stay.

Merion, the Warden, would about realize the Northern ideal of a Southern
overseer. He was an obstinate man, and his cruelty was low, vulgar, and
brutal like his mind. He would have been hypocritical, but that his
character was too coarse-grained to be pliant enough for successful
dissimulation. The members of the Board of Directors (with one or two
exceptions) were men of much the same stamp as the Warden--with rather
more cultivation perhaps, and less force. He entirely controlled them
all. He knew enough of medicine to pronounce quinine "a luxury," but he
directed the treatment of the sick, as he did all else.

After some three weeks of close confinement, we were permitted to
exercise in the hall for four hours during the day, and were locked in
for the rest of the time. The nervous irritability induced by this long
and close confinement, sometimes showed itself in a manner which would
have amused a man whose mind was in a healthy condition. Just as soon as
we were permitted to leave our cells in the morning and meet in the
hall, the most animated discussions, upon all sorts of topics, would
begin. These would occasionally degenerate into clamorous and angry
debates. The disputants would become as earnest and excited over
subjects in which perhaps they had never felt the least interest before,
as if they had been considering matters of vital and immediate
importance. A most heated, and finally acrimonious dispute once arose
regarding General Joseph E. Johnston's hight. One party asserted
positivel