or my good fare for a month or two, during
my last days in Danville. Now I have told you how I managed to get a
living in Danville, and will tell how some others managed to get theirs.

I have spoken of Captain H. H. Alban, who was my companion during the
latter part of my tramp through South Carolina, Georgia and North
Carolina, and who was recaptured with me. The same opportunities were
afforded him to make money enough to subsist himself, as were enjoyed by
me, but he was not adapted to buying and selling. He earned money enough
to get along, however, by hard labor.

He would go out with the water detail once in a while, and when he came
back he would bring along on his shoulder a good straight stick of cord
wood. Then with a case knife that he had made into a saw, he would cut it
up into pieces about eight inches long, and with wooden wedges that he had
whittled out, would split these up fine, say about half an inch thick, and
tie them up into bundles for cooking rations with. These bundles would be
about six inches in diameter and eight inches long, which he would sell
for two dollars each.

By being economical, one of these bundles of hard wood splinters, (they
were usually beach or maple) would last a person two or three days to cook
his rations with.

Nearly all of the cooking was done in one quart tin pails or in tin
plates.

Broken pieces of flat iron were sometimes used to build the fires upon,
but most of the prisoners cooked on the stoves that were in the two rooms.

Some of the officers in the different prisons made beautiful trinkets out
of beef bones, such as napkin rings, paper cutters, crochet needles, pen
holders, imitations of books, etc., and sold them to their
fellow-prisoners to take home with them as souvenirs of their prison life.

Some of these bone-workers were skilled artists, and could fashion
anything out of a beef bone. I have seen as fine a piece of work of this
kind, done with the rude tools that the mechanic had made himself, as I
have ever seen made with the latest and most approved machinery. Carving
of the most exquisite patterns, and in beautiful designs could be seen in
one of these collections.

I remember of seeing one napkin-ring carved out in open work, connected
with a continuous vine with beautiful clusters of grapes, the price of
which was $100. I bought, and brought home with me, $35 worth of these
trinkets.

A number of us belonging to five or six different messe