all issues and occasions where the man is called upon, to do, to suffer, or to die, if needs be, for his kind. Among the most active and zealous, being that noble gentleman Captain C. F. Johnson,* of that Old Roman Buckner'st staff, who chartered a boat, the Diligent, assumed the responsibility of payment, which was two thousand dollars, for accommodations for one hundred passengers. Thanks to the kind offers of my friend Johnson, I was one of the favored. The owner of the boat had recommended her highly, and it was with pleasurable emotions that we changed from the Choteau, to the Diligent. Although it was painful to leave our comrades on the old Choteau, yet we could not do them any good by remaining, and increased their comfort by leaving. It seems to me that if Captain Johnson could have chartered a boat, the authorities could have done the same, showing there was no necessity for herding us like cattle in our own filth, as was the case on the Choteau. I had not a soumarque, but the word of a Confederate soldier in 1862, was good to a brother soldier. Out we steamed into the river, and our tortuous passage began. Gun-boats in front of us, gun-boats in the rear of us, and some six thousand emaciated creatures between them. They said, "many of us looked well!" True, those who had fine constitutions, stood it, but they were "few and far between." Many of the regiment to which I was attached, looked well, yet out of four hundred men led into prison, April the 8th, 1862, over one hundred were taken out feet foremost before September 1st, of the same year, (four months and twenty-one days,) a terrible ratio for men who were so well treated. On getting fairly started, we examined our floating elephant, and found sleeping accommodations for thirty persons, in state-rooms, that had been used a score of trips for the conveyance of wounded and dying soldiers, the effluvia from whose bodies had impregnated every pore in the room, defying a Hercules to cleanse them. I opened the door of one room, but my olfactories rebelled,

*Captain Johnson is (now 1868) of the firm Tyler, Johnson & Co., Louisville, Kentucky.

† Buckner, editing in Louisville, that sterling paper the "Louisville Journal."

and I concluded to sleep on the deck. To regulate matters, straws were drawn; those sleeping in the state-rooms, eating at the second and third tables; those on deck, at the first table. Plenty to eat, and fresh air, under exposure is preferable to a foul state-room and a deficiency of aliment We moved on, and in a few days were off Memphis, having had nothing to disturb the monotony of the trip, only the sad spectacle of the burial, at different landings, of the sixty poor fellows who died on the trip; a terrible bill of mortality, one per cent. in thirteen days. We came to anchor off the Bluff city, on a lovely day in September, the bluff's fourth Chickasaw, (that form so beautiful a crown for the Egyptian Queen of our modern Nile,) were garnished with the beauty, and fashion of the city. Lovely women and brave men were there to give us welcome. There were many of the latter, whose hearts were in the cause, who remained at home, for reasons unnecessary to mention in this connection; and it had been better, if many of those who did go into the Confederacy, had followed their example, as too many, who from a sense of pride left their hearths and firesides, to follow in the wake of our armies, or to pitch their social tent in some one of the many distracted circles of the South, did no good, and set the pernicious example of wild speculation, one of the most demoralizing elements of the war; whereas, had they remained, they could have rendered much service, in ameliorating the condition of prisoners, and assisting the families of those whose protectors were in the army.

I with others, who had loved ones in Memphis, was anxious to reach the shore. Hour after hour passed, and no prospect of our desire being gratified. At last a small skiff was seen to leave the shore, the occupant rowing for the steamer we were on. He soon reached the boat, and we found 'twas a news-boy, with the daily papers. While those who had eagerly purchased them, were reading them with avidity, I changed my military coat for one of linen, loaned me by that generous gentleman, Lieutenant George Martin, of the artillery, and walked quietly down to the boiler-deck, where I found Lieutenant" Si" Hay

man in citizen's dress, conversing with the news-boy; in a few moments Hayman jumped into the boat, and I followed, the boy quietly remonstrating. I told him, to hand me the oars, take his seat in the stern, and with Hayman in the bow, I pulled for the shore, reaching it at the foot of Beale street, about twenty feet from one of the enemy's mortar-boats; gave the boy the only halfdollar I had, and walked up the street, meeting a host of friends, while en route for the Gayosa hotel, my objective point on landing. Under the influence of a famous caterer of the time, Frank Madden's combinations, I was enabled to withstand the flood of friendly greetings, that well-nigh o'erwhelmed me. Memphis was alive, and the blood of her generous heart was coursing through Colonel John Martin, Captain Ad. Storm, Colonel Samuel P. Walker, F. L. Warner, Colonel J. Knox Walker,* and many others, who were running to and fro, dealing out money and other necessaries, with the liberality that none but the generous can appreciate.

The Confederate prisoners who were in that fleet, will never forget those whole-hearted men, or their posterity. Even children were carried away by the promptings of generosity. One little girl in particular, poorly clad and bare-footed, with a basket of apples on her arm, when asked the price of them by a soldier, replied, "Nothing to Confederate soldiers ;" and, suiting the action to the word, threw basket and contents into the crowd. For one, I can never forget the material courtesies extended me, by Samuel P. Walker, Ad. Storm, Frank Hyde, John Johnston, and John A. Henry.

While lying at the wharf, as some of the boats had come in for coaling and other purposes, one of those

* Colonel J. Knox Walker was one of the most courtly gentlemen I ever knew. His failing health compelled him to leave the service of the cause he loved so well, (but his heart was in it.) He was eminent, as a politician and financier, and one of the most genial gentlemen the South ever produced. I can almost hear his ringing laugh, as we parted, while he hummed:

"If you get there before I do,
Tell them I'm a coming to."

But the gallant Walker had too great a soul for a frail body, and he has gone to that land, where the curses of a vandal foe are not heard. Peace to his ashes!