August,
it was authoritatively announced that we were to be taken on the next
day to Charleston to be exchanged. Only those who have themselves been
prisoners, can understand what our feelings then were--when the hope
that had become as necessary to our lives as the breath we drew, was at
length about to be realized. That night there was little sleep among the
fifty--but they passed it in alternate raptures of congratulation at
their good luck, or shivering apprehension lest, after all, something
might occur to prevent it.

But when the next day came and we were all transferred to a steamer, and
her head was turned for Charleston, we began to master all doubts and
fears. We reached Charleston harbor very early on the morning of the
3rd, lay at anchor for two or three hours, and then steamed slowly in
toward the city, until we passed the last monitor, and halted again. In
a short time, a small boat came out from Charleston, with the fifty
Federal prisoners on board and officers of General Jones' staff,
authorized to conclude the exchange. When she came alongside, the final
arrangements were effected, but not until a mooted point had threatened
to break off the negotiation altogether. Happily for us, we knew nothing
of this difficulty until it was all over, but we were made very nervous
by the delay. When all the details were settled, we were transferred to
the Confederate boat, and the Federal officers were brought on board of
the steamer which we left; then touching hats to the crew we parted
from, we bade our captivity farewell.

Twelve months of imprisonment, of absence from all we loved, was over at
last. No man of that party could describe his feelings intelligibly--a
faint recollection of circumstances is all that can be recalled in such
a tumult of joy. As we passed down the bay, the gallant defenders of
those works around Charleston, the names of which have become immortal,
stood upon the parapets and cheered to us, and we answered like men who
were hailing for life. The huge guns, which lay like so many grim watch
dogs around the city, thundered a welcome, the people of the heroic city
crowded to the wharves to receive us. If anything could repay us for the
wretchedness of long imprisonment and our forced separation from
families and friends, we found it in the unalloyed happiness of that
day.

General Jones had then (and has now), the profound gratitude of fifty of
his comrades. Ever doing his duty bravely