CHAPTER LXXII.
DULL WINTER DAYS--TOO WEAK AND TOO STUPID To AMUSE OURSELVES--ATTEMPTS OF THE REBELS TO RECRUIT US INTO THEIR ARMY--THE CLASS OF MEN THEY OBTAINED -- VENGEANCE ON "THE GALVANIZED"-- A SINGULAR EXPERIENCE--RARE GLIMPSES OF FUN--INABILITY OF THE REBELS TO COUNT.
The Rebels continued their efforts to induce prisoners to enlist in their army, and with much better success than at any previous time.

Many men had become so desperate that they were reckless as to what they did.
Home, relatives, friends, happiness--all they had remembered or looked forward to, all that had nerved them up to endure the present and brave the future--now seemed separated from them forever by a yawning and impassable chasm.

For many weeks no new prisoners had come in to rouse their drooping courage with news of the progress of our arms towards final victory, or refresh their remembrances of home, and the gladsomeness of "God's Country." Before them they saw nothing but weeks of slow and painful progress towards bitter death.

The other alternative was enlistment in the Rebel army.
Another class went out and joined, with no other intention than to escape at the first opportunity.

They justified their bad faith to the Rebels by recalling the numberless instances of the Rebels' bad faith to us, and usually closed their arguments in defense of their course with: "No oath administered by a Rebel can have any binding obligation.