rust by the Union
General.

8. On February 12, 1864, General Butler addressed a letter to the Rebel
Commissioner Ould, in which be asked, for the sake of humanity, that the
questions interrupting the exchange be left temporarily in abeyance while
an informal exchange was put in operation. He would send five hundred
prisoners to City Point; let them be met by a similar number of Union
prisoners. This could go on from day to day until all in each other's
hands should be transferred to their respective flags.

The five hundred sent with the General's letter were received, and five
hundred Union prisoners returned for them. Another five hundred, sent
the next day, were refused, and so this reasonable and humane proposition
ended in nothing.

This was the condition of affairs in February, 1864, when the Rebel
authorities concluded to send us to Andersonville. If the reader will
fix these facts in his minds I will explain other phases as they develop.

CHAPTER XI.

PUTTING IN THE TIME--RATIONS--COOKING UTENSILS--"FIAT" SOUP--"SPOONING"
--AFRICAN NEWSPAPER VENDERS--TRADING GREENBACKS FOR CONFEDERATE MONEY
--VISIT FROM JOHN MORGAN.

The Winter days passed on, one by one, after the manner described in a
former chapter,--the mornings in ill-nature hunger; the afternoons and
evenings in tolerable comfort. The rations kept growing lighter and
lighter; the quantity of bread remained the same, but the meat
diminished, and occasional days would pass without any being issued.
Then we receive a pint or less of soup made from the beans or peas before
mentioned, but this, too, suffered continued change, in the gradually
increasing proportion of James River water, and decreasing of that of the
beans.

The water of the James River is doubtless excellent: it looks well--at a
distance--and is said to serve the purposes of ablution and navigation
admirably. There seems to be a limit however, to the extent of its
advantageous combination with the bean (or pea) for nutritive purposes.
This, though, was or view of the case, merely, and not shared in to any
appreciably extent by the gentlemen who were managing our boarding house.
We seemed to view the matter through allopathic spectacles, they through
homoeopathic lenses. We thought that the atomic weight of peas (or
beans) and the James River fluid were about equal, which would indicate
that the proper combining proportions would be, say a bucket of beans (or
peas) to a buc