was a regular system being carried out of securing
cavalry horses for other sections.

In this part of the country they had more cavalry than infantry, while
in other sections much of the veteran cavalry was dismounted for want of
horses. So they would put these cavalrymen under arrest for
chicken-stealing or any offense whenever possible and appropriate their
horses for service elsewhere. Infantrymen were let off for the same
offenses.

One of the rebel officers in charge offered to let us out if we would
join his company, but we declined, with thanks.

There was plenty of money among the prisoners, and much poker-playing to
kill time.

I had a toothpick, made of bone and representing a woman, for which I
got fifty cents in silver. With this amount I bribed one of the guards
to get us four dozen eggs. Some of these we ate ourselves, but we sold
the most of them to the prisoners for $1 apiece in Confederate money.
These eggs were procured by the guard from some paroled Federal
prisoners on the outside.

On the day following our egg deal I got permission to go outside with a
guard for some water, and then secured permission to buy some supplies
and take them inside. After some hunting around we found a nigger who
had a lot of turnips, and I bought a bushel for $10 in Confederate
money, having a good margin left. We ate all the turnips we wanted, and
then got $1 apiece for the balance. Everything went at $1 a unit in
Confederate money. Keeping this thing up, we fed ourselves well during
our stay, and when we left we had $400 in Confederate money.

Two of the spies mentioned were named Honeycut and Masterson, and the
latter was kept in irons. They had money, and secured extra food from
the outside, of which we got a share.

Masterson had been captured with a lot of drugs in his possession, and
he had claimed to be from Georgia, to which part of the country he was
returning after having run the blockade with his drugs from the North,
but he had forgotten to make all his stories agree, and they had
arrested him as a spy and put leg-irons upon him. Later on, he joined
the Confederate army to save his neck.

Honeycut claimed to have been a Copperhead in Ohio, and that he had been
drafted and had furnished a substitute, but had then been drafted the
second time, when he had sworn that he would not stand it. He claimed to
have sent his family to Matamoras, and that he had gone to New York to
join them by steamer, but h