IT is a wondrously pleasant thing to sit, on a winter evening, in one's comfortable room, leaning lazily back in a cushioned arm-chair, one's feet propped up by the burnished fender and warmed by the glow of the crackling anthracite. The wind howls without, and drives the cutting sleet against the window panes, with a sound which serves marvellously to increase our sense of comfort, and our store of thankfulness. Ah, how pleasantly we ruminate then, as we watch the gleaming jets of ruby and of azure darting and winding among the glowing coals ! Those may, indeed, be grateful and pleasing thoughts of happy morning hours, fresh and green, islanded here and there along the downward current of life's river ; of present noon-day hopes sailing calmly onward to peaceful havens ; of a tranquil, bright horizon, gleaming down the stream, under an evening sky of violet and of gold !

But, alas ! it is quite another affair to sit in your stiff-backed, hard-seated flour-barrel-arm-chair, in a cheerless prison, with the winter wind blowing polar needles in your face through the paneless, shutterless windows,-your hat slouched down on the windward side of your head for a shield,-arid to behold around you your shivering fellow-prisoners, blowing their fingers to keep them warm, and all muffled up in their gray blankets, as if they were so many uneasy Rebel ghosts stalking about in Confederate windingsheets ; to have no letters to write, and no book to read, and to sit there staring at your one yellow Confederate tallow candle, stuck in an impracticable cake of corn bread for a candle-stick-staring at it as though you might, by some hitherto unsuspected optical process, extract, for your own bodily comfort, the meagre caloric of its flickering flame,-then from the candle passing your eye to the candle-stick, and staring at that, as though you were speculating upon the frightful probability of having to devour it for your breakfast to-morrow, tallow-drippings and all.

This, I repeat, is quite another case, and the ruminations which occupy your brain are of a correspondingly diverse character. It is all very well to recollect that you once read a beautiful and instructive lecture by Doctor Farraday on the wonderful chemical processes which take place in a burning candle; it may have interested you hugely at the time to read about oxygen and hydrogen, and the many extraordinary antics which these gases play in the blaze of your tallow-dip, and how if it were not for the nitrogen in the air, it would burn itself up in a snap of your fingers. Your thoughts do not flow in this channel just now-unless, indeed, the alarming rapidity with which your candle uses itself up, notwithstanding the charitable assistance of the nitrogen, should suggest the melancholy reflection that this distressed, bilious-looking taper has cost you the round sum of one dollar !

Your thoughts are resolutely cast in the rigid mould of that gloomy philosophy which teaches you, not so much to endeavor to fly from the evils which beset you, but rather to grapple with them, and trample them under foot. But this admirable system of ethics it is not always easy to put into practice ; so you continue to stare at your candle, and you stare so intensely and so long, that if you are a hypochondriac (and of course you are one) you may readily be led into the suicidal hallucination that you also are made of tallow, and have a burning wick protruding from the top of your head, and that, after all, you are only two candles staring blankly at one another, and watching each other melt away, inch by inch, with a sort of silent, demoniacal satisfaction !

Finally, you arrive at one, and only one conclusion, which is, that if there be any one thing in this world more utterly unsatisfactory than any other, it is to be a prisoner of war. He who is imprisoned for the commission of a crime, has at least the consolation of knowing that he deserves the punishment he suffers. But the idea of being shut up in a dreary and loathsome tomb, for weeks and months-to be tortured, and pinched, and starved-merely for serving your country, and endeavoring, through it, to serve humanity ! Had you failed to answer at your country's call, such tortures might be fully merited. Stop ! you must call your moral ethics here to your aid, for you feel that the burning wick in your head is playing the deuce with your cerebral tallow. You moralize for a while, and you finally arrive at the conclusion, (you could not very well arrive at any other,) that it is all for the best. Now, with Portia you exclaim

" How far that little candle throws his beams ! So shines a good deed in a naughty world!"

Then you fall to making a series of quaint, but wholesome similes, and you begin by considering that after all, if you are a hypochondriac, and have conceived yourself to be even that most disgraceful of cereous concoctions, a Confederate candle, there is some analogy and truth in the illusion ; for, is it not thus our fleeting life melts away in this rude world?-and if you are righteous adamantine, and not impure tallow, will you not burn the brighter, and shine the farther for it ?-if the rude winds of sorrow assail you, will you not flicker, and gutter, and melt away the sooner ?-if you do not trim your wick, now and then with a pair of moral snuffers, will you not run, and drip, and splutter, and become an abomination in the eyes of all good people?-and are there not moments in your weary captivity, oh, wicked prisoner I when you wish some merciful gush of the winter wind through the iron bars would blow you out, and be done with it !

The sentinel under my window is crying out at the top of his voice : " Nine o'clock I lights out !"

As I creep in between my blankets I feel that I owe something to that poor candle for the little sermon it has preached to me. I shall wander off now into the empyrean fields of a pre-slumberous reveriea sort of nocturnal campaign against the evils of discontent, with my dollar's worth of morality in my haversack-and ere I fall asleep I shall be sure to have strayed on, and on, very far into the future, or perhaps even to the doors of that eternal prison, narrower, and colder, and darker, than the Libby, at whose threshold Death, the grim sentinel, will cry out, " Nine o'clock ! lights out !" and I will answer as I have clone tonight:

"Out, out, brief candle!"

People are in the habit of speaking of the other world, as if there were but two : I would suggest that there are three--the third is the Prison World.

In the species of posthumous existence which the prisoner leads, the memories of the past, the kindly sympathies, expressed in tender messages, of the dear ones far away in the sphere of a real life, the affectionate tokens which reach him warm from the hearts of unforgetting friends-all these seem but like the echoes of familiar voices borne to him from another world.

The life of the prison-house is simply inhuman, unnatural. Different minds are no doubt affected to a different degree by it ; but whatever the mental constitution, it must be influenced to a certain extent, and deflected, as it were, from its habitual angle. The speculative become morbid and misanthropic ; the excitable and buoyant, languishing from the lack of mental stimulus, sink by reaction into the stagnation of a morbid apathy. It is the calm and philosophical who are best calculated to endure the weary monotony and the tedious routine of prison life. Not but that most men are apt to become to some extent selfish and irascible under suffering and privation ; but the one naturally callous and uncharitable becomes repulsively egotistical, and the one naturally ill-tempered converts himself into an insupportable monster, actuated by the ferocity of the bear, and bristling all over with the quills of the porcupine. But if the bad qualities of some are so forcibly developed, the good in others are apt to expand in the same ratio : the amiable become almost feminine in their kindness ; the generous carry their liberality into improvidence; the charitable become self-sacrificing in their bounty; -to such, the influences of prison life are fraught with beneficial tendencies. Religion, the child of woe, cradled in humility, and reared in misfortune, takes a deeper root in their hearts. The mind lacking occupation turns inevitably to thought,-thought leads it to investigation-investigation to truth. The daily contemplation of suffering and misery, of helplessness and want, teach the necessity of faith-and faith is the leaf of that plant whose blossoms are of hope. Cut off from comforts and tender sympathies-from the daily intercourse of friends-from the habitual avocations of life-shut out from social pleasures-doomed to the tedium of a solitude which is the heaviest to bear : the solitude of the heart ; and to a melancholy which is the saddest : in which day after day, and month after month, the same gloomy scenes are contemplated, the same cold faces beheld, the same narrow circle walked,-he is lost indeed, who loses hope.

Imprisonment generally renders men serious-with that seriousness of the heart which lifts it to purer thoughts, and to better actions. No place, surely, is better adapted than the prison-house for the study of human nature. Suffering develops the real character. It is in the midst of bodily or mental anguish that we are apt to cast off the mask unreservedly, and indeed, unawares. This is a crucible to the heart. In such an imprisonment as ours, there is no privacy ; there are no moments of truce for hypocrisy-of rest for the daily wearing of the mask ; we live continually as if in the midst of a crowded street-held up to the observation of the curious-always under the eye of some one. Under such circumstances, that goodness must indeed be sterling which never forgets itself, and that merit genuine which stands firmly upon its pedestal to the last.

Captivity is a flail which threshes the chaff out of human pride. Men are not apt to be supercilious when they are starving ; they suffer, and must bow; they are tortured, and must yield. They must battle against idleness, and they become diligent ; they must elude their implacable foe, ennui, every hour of the day and every day of the month, and when their resources are exhausted they must stoop to trivial pursuits and pastimes to baffle their enemy,-being no longer able to amuse themselves as men, they remember how they used to amuse themselves when they were children. They are surprised to find that the whittling of toy-boats and playing at jack-straws, and romping like school-boys, can afford even a passing occupation.

All silly pride and squeamishness must be set aside the future brigadier must sit, barefoot, with a bucket between his legs, while he washes his own stockings ; the dashing cavalry officer, who led that glorious charge of which the newspapers were so full, must inevitably serve his turn at cooking and scouring, like a good patriotic cook and scullion that he is,he must accommodate his genius to circumstances, and display as much gallantry in charging a row of cookpots as he did in scattering a battalion of the enemy's cavalry.

It is curious to see with what earnestness and alacrity every branch of learning is undertaken. There have been at different times in the prison, classes of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin and Greek, English Grammar, Phonography, Fencing, Dancing, Military Tactics and a Bible Class. Of course this educational enthusiasm is very ephemeral ; these studies are taken up with avidity, to be dropped in disgust at an early day. What the prisoner seeks, in most cases, is not so much instruction as novelty -not so much information as amusement;-much good is no doubt derived from this morbid thirst, for here and there a good seed takes root in a fruitful brain, and glimpses are afforded into the rich arcana of science which may, at some future period, lead to more substantial results. The prison-world must have its educational system ; the student turns down the leaf of his Natural Philosophy to set to work at chopping his hash ; he lays down his Logic or his Rhetoric to go to the trough to wash his shirt.

This is a capital system-for it renders the student humble, while it makes him learned-and this humility will in after life, rather add to than detract from the merit of his wisdom. He is compelled to learn some thing of housekeeping also-which will prove of great benefit to him in matrimony, and which will be considered by his wife decidedly charming and economical. Indeed, no system of training could be better adapted to prepare a young man for the duties, the responsibilities, the vicissitudes, and may I with all deference be permitted to add, the little counterrevolutions of married life.

He learns something of the real world too: he studies it by contrast ; he learns properly to appreciate the evils of idleness, the blessings of freedom, the sympathy of friends, the necessity of social communion ; he learns, by sad experience, how many blessings there are in the world, which he had ignored. If gratitude be indeed the memory of the heart, he feels how bright that memory should be ever kept by those who have never read their own names written in the book of suffering, as well as by those who have thumbed its dreary pages in the prison-house.

Most people's notions about imprisonment are connected with the idea of an unbroken solitude ; of that constant association with self, which no heart, however gifted and pure, and no mind, however fruitful in resources and rich in lore, can long withstand without drooping into weariness, and languishing into melancholy. With us, here, the case is in many respects different. More than a thousand human beings crowded. into the narrow limits of the prison, subjected to the same trials and privations, forced constantly into one another's society, and continually under each other's eyes, we suffer intensely from the want of that very privacy of which the victim of solitary confinement has too much.

This forcing together of spirits often uncongenial, of diverse tastes, and antagonistical ideas, is a curse to the mind.

This jamming together of hapless mortality, this endless "crush of matter," and ceaseless shock of tortured humanity, is a curse to the body.

The prison is crowded to its utmost capacity ; every nook and corner is occupied ; we jostle each other at the hydrants, on the stairs, around the cooking stoves ; at night we must calculate closely the horizontal space required on the floor for the proper distribution of our recumbent anatomy. Everywhere there is crowding, wrangling and confusion.

" If there is society where none intrudes," there is surely very little of it where the intruders are so numerous. As to being exclusive-the attempt would be preposterous ;-as to living secluded-that is out of the question. You are in a whirlpool, and you must keep whirling round daily with the merciless eddy in a sort of diabolical gyration. This is apt to render one irascible and crabbed, and some times even unjust,-which horribly jangles that precious little silver bell in the human heart-good nature, wont at times to ring out, amid the wilder chimes, such pleasant music !

To add to the unwholesomeness, and to the inconveniences of such a mode of life, we are allowed no out-door exercise. The prison is too much crowded to admit of our walking about with any degree of comfort. Sonic of the prisoners now here, have not once stepped outside the prison door during more than eight months !

Perhaps no periods of our prison life are so trying as those melancholy episodes in it connected with our cooking experiences.
 
I feel constrained to devote a few remarks to this subject, in view of the probable benefits to be derived from them, in future times, by such unfortunate military gentlemen as may be condemned to pass through the smoky ordeal of a prison cook-house ; for, a soldier, however much accustomed to stand fire, will occasionally find himself, under such circumstances, in a place quite as hot as the battle-field, and unless he pay some attention to the theory and practice of minor strategy, he will more than once be compelled to go dinnerless.

You are reminded by the members of your mess, (whose memories seldom prove treacherous in this connection,) that it is your turn to cook. If you are in a large mess your tour of duty will be of two or three days' duration ; if you are in a small one, it will last, perhaps, a week.

The first question you ask of yourself, when this gratifying information is conveyed to you, is apt to be this : " What shall we have for dinner?" The same question is being asked every day, and has been, since time immemorial, by ingenious housewives with reduced larders ; you have probably heard it yourself more than once at home, perchance during the happy years of your improvident adolescence, and you may now philosophize a little upon the supreme inconvenience, under peculiar circumstances, of having to answer this question.

In the Libby, to be sure, you will not be quite so much puzzled for a reply. "Let me see," you will soliloquize, casting an anxious and searching glance at your boxes and shelves, " we have corn-bread, and vinegar, and salt, and pepper, and a little rye-coffee, and. .. " Here you will pause and scratch your head, for it is very awkward to finish a sentence with a conjunction ; but you will have to waive your grammatical scruples, and resign yourself to the commission of a harmless solecism ; for you will probably recollect that there is an unprofitable "and" at the end of every thing, pretty much, about the Libby, where "ands " are as common as are "ifs " in the outer world, and unfortunately quite as useless. So, finding that your " and" must remain in hopeless celibacy owing to the absence of any edible to wed it to, you will take up your corn-bread and study what you may concoct out of it, or how you may disguise it, and make it look like something else than so much baked saw-dust ; you may grate it down-(Oh, shade of Soyer I) saturate it with water, and fashion it into the semblance of a corn-meal pudding ; or, you may fry it, with pork-fat, into corn-cakes-or, . . . but your " or" may prove quite as troublesome to you as your "and,"-so you decide upon the pudding, which sounds so homelike and civilized. You mix your pudding, and with it on a tin plate in one hand, and your coffee-pot in the other, you proceed down to the cook-room.

You find the cook-room crowded to suffocation, the latter process being admirably facilitated by the cloud of impenetrable smoke which is the prevailing atmosphere of the cook-world ; the stoves are completely covered with all sorts of ingenious culinary contrivances in the shape of pots, skillets, pans, mugs, and cans, and to back this formidable assortment of motley utensils, is an army of ferocious cooks, armed with ladles, forks, and spoons, all struggling to look into their " stews" at one and the same time-an operation which is utterly impracticable where only three small stoves are to render edible so large a quantity of the most uncookable and indigestible materials.

You marvel why it is that all these insane men should have been seized with the unreasonable whim of cooking just at that particular time, when the members of your mess expect you to prepare their dinner. You wait a long time, standing there, and staring vacantly, and painfully too, through the thick smoke ; the aspect of affairs is very unpromising, but you must arrive at some decision : your messmates will not agree with you that it would be more wholesome to dine after dark ; so, you advance a few steps, and make a frantic effort to wedge yourself in between those fratricidal cooks. In all probability some crabbed fellow lets fall upon your legs a little summer shower of scalding water ; or, some piratical looking foreigner, with overgrown moustaches curled up at the ends like a pair of infuriated scorpions, runs the handle of a ponderous ladle into your ribs ; or, an accidental back-hander from some gigantic Hoosier jostles a fair proportion of your ground coffee into your eyes;-but you must push on bravely, regardless of all personal peril, and persevere undismayed until you have had your toes trodden upon for the hundredth time-until you are red in the face as a dry-weather moon-until you have smutted your nose, and burnt your fingers-until you are half stifled, half distracted, and completely disgusteduntil, in fine, you have baked your pudding, and rescued the voracious members of your mess from presenting a melancholy instance of Confederate starvation.

Then the dinner-that is to say, the pudding-over, you must remove your coat and roll up your sleeves, and go to work at " washing up the things." You make a great ado with your soft soap and hot water, looking for all the world, as you loom up out of a cloud of greasy steam, like a species of domestic cherub ; and you rub, and splash, and scour-presenting a picture which would stir to the very core the good old heart of your maternal grandmother !

Then, too, you must be very careful that the "things" are safe. You must keep an eye to them until they pass into the keeping of your successor ; for pilfering is not deemed a cardinal sin in the Libby ; your tin dippers and your pewter spoons are apt to be spirited away in the most miraculous manner, and your little store of eatables diminishes, at times, most unaccountably. Borrowing is safe to practice ; but lending is an imprudence against which you must guard, unless you are thoroughly convinced of the integrity and previous good character of the borrower. We were lately compelled to carve upon the coffee-pot of our mess, the following significant inscription :

" To borrow, is human-to return, divine."

An order from Major Turner was read to us a few days since, to the effect that henceforth we will be permitted to write home but one letter per week-no letter to exceed six lines. This is a severe limitation. The only unalloyed pleasure we experience in our imprisonment is the writing and receiving of letters. Much ingenuity must be exercised to enable one to crowd into six lines the thousand messages expected at our hands by mothers, wives, and sweethearts. The following is a model specimen from an incarcerated husband to his afflicted spouse

" MY DEAR WIFE

"Yours received-no hope of exchange-send cornstarch-want socks-no money-rheumatism in the left shoulder-pickles very good-send sausagesGod bless you-kiss the baby--Hail Columbia !

Your devoted

"HUSBAND."

The 8th of this month has been one of the most eventful in the history of our prison-life. It will be long remembered on account of the escape of more than a hundred of our number from bondage ; some, destined to reach the Federal lines in safety ; others, less fortunate, doomed to be recaptured, and to suffer additional tortures at the hands of our keepers.

As far back as last fall, various attempts had been made, by officers confined in the prison, under the direction of Colonel Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania, to excavate a tunnel, through which they might hope to effect their escape. To Colonel Rose is chiefly due the credit of these explorations. Animated by an unflinching earnestness of purpose, unwearying perseverance, and no ordinary engineering abilities, he organized, at different times, working parties of ten or fifteen officers, whom he conducted every night into the cellars of the prison. These cellars were very dark, and entirely unguarded, being seldom visited, even in the day time. To these they descended through an opening in the flooring of the room above them used as a kitchen for the prisoners ; this opening was carefully concealed by a well-fitted board during the day.

The earliest excavation made led directly into a stratum of rock, and was soon abandoned as impracticable. The next attempt was made in the direction of the main sewer, which runs under the street between the prison and the canal. The plan was to dig from the cellar into this sewer, and by creeping through it, to gain the street at a safe distance from the prison, by means of one of the inlets. After many nights of labor, performed under the most trying circumstances, water began to filter into the excavation, and finally poured in so rapidly that it was impossible to continue the work. This tunnel was abandoned with the greatest reluctance ; it was admirably planned, and had it proved successful, would no doubt have emptied the prison of its inmates in a few hours. Several thrilling incidents occurred in connection with it. The cellar from which it was started was sometimes used as a workshop, and a carpenter's table stood directly under the aperture through which the nocturnal diggers dropped down nightly from the kitchen above. The descent and ascent were made by means of a rope or blanket. One night, as one of the officers was being drawn up, the rope broke and he fell from a height of several feet upon the table. His fall made a fearful racket. A sentry whose beat was within a few yards of the locality of this untoward accident, immediately called out for the corporal of the guard. After a lengthy and profound discussion as to what might have occasioned this unusual noise, both the corporal and the sentry ascribed it to some trifling cause, and no further notice was taken of it.

Another night Colonel Rose was digging under the very beat of a sentinel, when a small portion of the earth and pavement caved in. The sentinel, attracted by the circumstance, ran immediately to the spot. "What is it?" asked the soldier at the next post. " A thundering big rat," cried the first one, running his bayonet into the hole. The point of the bayonet grazed the Colonel's cheek. He remained for a long time motionless and almost breathless, until the unsuspecting sentinel resumed his beat, little dreaming what were the real proportions of this Federal rat!

After many fruitless attempts to penetrate into the sewers, it was resolved to make an effort to tunnel under the street east of the prison, and to reach the yard of a ware-house opposite. This street was paced day and night by sentinels. Early in January, Colonel Rose organized a working party of fourteen officers, who were to relieve each other regularly in the work, one always remaining on guard near the excavation to prevent a trap being set for the capture of the remainder of the party, in case of discovery by the prison officials. Having succeeded in lifting out the bottom of the fire-place in the cook-room, they removed the bricks from the back of the flue, and penetrated between the floor joists into the cellar, under the end room used as a hospital. Passing through this aperture, they could with facility lower each other down into the cellar. An opening was commenced in the wall -near the northeast corner of the cellar. This opening was about two feet by eighteen inches. It was found necessary to cut through the piles on which the building was supported, and this tedious labor was at length successfully completed with no other tools but pocket knives. As they penetrated into the earth, great difficulty was experienced on account of the candles, which refused to burn in the close air of the tunnel. One of the party was compelled to stand constantly at the opening, fanning air into it with his hat. The tunnel fell with a slight depression for a distance of about twelve feet, then continued slightly ascending for about the same distance, and was nearly level the remainder of its length. It was about fifty-three feet long. The first depression was rendered necessary by the fall of the ground towards the ware-house.

The tunnel, at its entrance, was about two feet by eighteen inches, and for some six feet of its length ran at right angles with the street, it then turned a few degrees to the right with a diameter of only sixteen inches, and continued at this angle increasing gradually to a diameter of about two feet to its exit. In order to pass through, it was necessary, of course, to lie flat on one's face, propelling oneself with the hands and feet, as the space was not sufficient to allow of creeping on hands and knees.
As they approached the yard of the warehouse, a slight error in the computation of the distance nearly proved fatal to the enterprise. Thinking they had reached the enclosure, they dug up to the surface and upon breaking through discovered that they had come out in the street, outside the fence, and within a few yards of the sentinels. This hole was quickly filled up with a pair of old pants and some straw, and the digging was continued a few feet further to the desired point under a shed in the yard. An empty hogshead was drawn over the opening to conceal it in the daytime. During more than three weeks this severe labor had been perseveringly carried on. The only implements used were a large chisel furnished with a long handle, and a wooden spit-box brought down from one of the rooms above ; to each end of this box a cord was attached, by which it could be drawn into the tunnel and filled with the removed earth by the digger, and drawn out by his assistant. The earth and gravel thus taken out was carefully concealed under some straw and rubbish in the cellar.

On the night of the 8th, the tunnel was finally pronounced practicable for the proposed escape of the party. About twenty-five of the prisoners are said to have been in the secret ; these were to make their escape early in the evening, and were to have two hours start ; after that, the rest of the prisoners were to be informed, and all who were strong enough to make the attempt were to be allowed to go out.

Colonel Streight and his party were the first to go, and succeeded in making their way out undetected Once in the yard of the warehouse, they had but to pass out through a gate into the street, between the two lines of guards, and walk boldly away along the canal. During the night one hundred and nine of the officers thus made their escape. Of these only fifty-three have succeeded in reaching the Federal lines. The remainder have been recaptured at different points along the roads leading down to the Peninsula, and are now in the dungeons under the prison, on corn-bread and water. Colonel Rose, to whose protracted labors and untiring zeal, the final success of the plan of escape was mainly due, is unfortunately among the recaptured. After a series of thrilling adventures and narrow escapes, he had succeeded in approaching within a mile or two of Williamsburg, where he deemed himself safe from further pursuit. While resting by the roadside, he was approached by two soldiers dressed in the Federal uniform ; convinced that they were Union soldiers, he did not hesitate, in answer to their questions, to state who he was. They proved to be Rebel scouts. After they had taken him at a full run more than a mile out of the way of the Federal scouts and pickets who were close by, one of the Rebels left. Colonel Rose, though well nigh overcome with exhaustion, and fainting from hunger, made one last desperate effort for his liberty. Springing suddenly upon the remaining Rebel, he clutched him by the throat, and endeavored to throw him to the ground and disarm him ; he was so feeble, however, that after a brief struggle his strength entirely deserted him. He had contrived to get his finger on the trigger of his opporent's musket, and had discharged the piece during the struggle. The report of the gun having brought back the other scout, Colonel Rose was then secured and brought once more into the Confederate lines.

We are now subjected, in the prison, to an endless ordeal of roll calls, and every precaution is being taken by Major Turner to prevent any further attempts at escape. This rigid 'exercise of vigilance comes, of course, a day too late, and will not make up for the late laxity of discipline about the prison. Indeed it is wonderful how the grand escapade could have been effected without detection. During the exodus, at about midnight, a sudden panic seized the crowd of prisoners who were gathered about the fireplace in the cook-room, all endeavoring to be the first to get out through the tunnel. Some one said the guard was coming, and a general stampede took place up the stairways to the rooms above, with a frightful noise of feet, and oversetting of boxes and barrels, that must have been heard a square off. But the guards did not suspect what was in progress ; one of them, indeed, was heard to call out jocosely to a companion on the next beat " Halloa, Bill-there's somebody's coffee-pot upset, sure !"

The recaptured officers give many thrilling accounts of their adventures. One party got into a boat on the James River, and followed the stream in the hope of reaching Hampton Roads. Unfortunately they got into the Appomattox River by mistake, where their little craft was upset in the darkness of the night, and they were compelled to take to the shore, nearly frozen to death. The next morning they were discovered by some Rebel soldiers and recaptured. Another party had concealed themselves in the swamps near the Chickahominy, where they were hunted out by the aid of clogs and finally secured.

Among the escaped are the following Field Officers :

Colonel A. D. Streight, 51st Indiana.
     "      Thomas E. Rose, 77th Pennsylvania.*
     "      C. W. Tilden, 16th Maine.
     "      W. G. Ely, 18th Connecticut.*
     "      W. B. McCreary, 16th Maine.
     "      W. P. Kendrick, N. Tennessee Cavalry.
Lieutenant-Colonel J. C. Boyd, Quartermaster's Department.
      "                "      D. E. Miles, 79th Pennsylvania.*
      "                "      J. C. Spofford, 97th New York.*
      "                "      J. Walker, 5th Kentucky Cavalry.
      "                "      E. L. Hayes, 100th Ohio.*
      "                "      C. H. Morton, Kentucky Cavalry.
      "                "      T. G. West, 24th Wisconsin.
      "                "      H. C. Hobart, 21st Wisconsin.
Major J. H. Hooper, 15th Massachusetts. Mulholland, 30th Indiana.
    "     Von Mitzell, 74th Pennsylvania. Fitzsimmons, 30th Indiana. B. B. McDonald, 101st Ohio.
    "      J. P. Collins, 29th Indiana.
J. Henry, 6th Ohio Cavalry.*

Those marked with a star were retaken.

Of the Line Officers thirty were Captains, and fifty-eight were Lieutenants.

The recaptured officers state that they were treated with kindness by those who retook them,-especially by the officers and soldiers on duty in the neighborhood of the Chickahominy. Indeed, it was not until their return to the prison, where they were locked up in the cells on bread and water, that they experienced any harsh or unsoldierlike treatment.