ur government had
sent for them, and as we would be home before he would, he gave us, Lieut.
Leyden and myself, the letters and checks we had given to the old reb at
Danville, in exchange for fourteen hundred dollars in Confederate money.
And, shall I confess it, in a fit of absent-mindedness (?) I tore them up
and threw them into the stove, thus saving the bother of taking them to
Riggs & Co., at Washington. I have forgotten the old gentleman's name who
so greatly befriended me by giving me such a liberal supply of money
which, although worthless to him, served to supply myself and a number of
my comrades, with the best the Confederacy afforded, for the balance of
our stay in rebeldom.

Our stay in Richmond was of short duration, but we left it without regret.

On the twentieth of February, we were again ordered to "pack up," and this
time for home. I cannot describe the wild tumult of joy with which the
order was received. Many of the enlisted men, who with us occupied the
building, though in a separate appartment, and to whom we had managed to
smuggle some of our rations, were too weak to walk alone, and were obliged
to walk between two of their comrades, who supported them to the boat and
tenderly cared for them. Their emaciated forms and lusterless eyes, told a
painful story of the starvation and suffering they had endured for the
preservation of their country, and for their loyalty to the flag.

And yet there are those even here in the North, who grew rich through
THEIR sufferings, who begrudge them the beggarly pittance of a pension of
a few dollars a month, to keep them from the poor house; when, by their
heroic fortitude, and their indescribable sufferings, they made it
possible for the bonds of the government to be worth a _hundred cents on
the dollar in gold_; made it possible for these very men to be to-day
enjoying the luxury of wealth in a happy and prosperous land; to be
citizens of a country whose treasury is overflowing to such an extent that
the President of the United States has deemed it necessary to cry out in
alarm, that the country is in danger from a too plethoric treasury. These
same heroic souls who twenty-five years ago, by their loyalty to the old
flag, and whose patriotic devotion to the principles of universal freedom,
led them to offer themselves upon the altar of their country, if they
escaped a horrible death by starvation and are still living, are looked
upon by many who profited so la