They had all heard rumors, however, and by the time they reached Andersonville, they had crystallized these into actual statements of fact.

A half hour after they entered the Stockade, a report like this would spread like wildfire: "An Army of the Potomac man has just come in, who was captured in front of Petersburg.

He says that he read in the New York Herald, the day before he was taken, that an exchange had been agreed upon, and that our ships had already started for Savannah to take us home." Then our hopes would soar up like balloons.

We fed ourselves on such stuff from day to day, and doubtless many lives were greatly prolonged by the continual encouragement.

There was hardly a day when I did not say to myself that I would much rather die than endure imprisonment another month, and had I believed that another month would see me still there, I am pretty certain that I should have ended the matter by crossing the Dead Line.