The 6th hundred was called, then the 7th and at last the 8th. We marched down to our allotted position with limbs trembling with excitement. That surgeon standing there so unconcernedly, held my fate in his hands. He was soon to say the word that would restore me to “God’s Country,” to home and friends, or send me back to weary months of imprisonment.
My turn came. “What ails you?” the surgeon asked.
“I have had diarrhea and scurvy for eight months,” was my reply, and I pulled up the legs of my pants to show him my limbs, which were almost as black as a stove. He passed his hands over the emaciated remains of what had once been my arms and asked, “When is your time of service out?” “It was out the 10th of last October,” said I.
That surgeon was a stranger to me. I never saw him before that day nor have I seen him since, but upon the tablet of my memory I have written him down as FRIEND.
I did not wait for a second permission but started for the gate.
Just as I was going out some of my comrades saw me and shouted, “Bully for you Bill; you’re a lucky boy!” and I believed I was. After passing outside I went to a tent where two or three clerks were busy upon rolls and signed the parole. Before I left Harry Lowell joined me and together we went into camp where rations of flour were issued to us. After dark Harry and I stole past the guard and went down to the gravediggers’ quarters where we were provided with a supper of rice, sweet potatoes and biscuits. I have no doubt that to-day I should turn up my nose at the cooking of that dish, for the sweet potatoes and rice were stewed and baked together, but I did not then. After supper John Burk baked our flour into biscuits, using cob ashes in the place of soda; after which we stole back into camp.
Not a wink of sleep did we get that night. We had eaten too much supper for one thing, and besides our prison day seemed to be almost ended. We were marched to the railroad next morning, but the wind was blowing so hard that we were not sent away, as the vessels could not run in the harbor at Charleston.
Just before night a ration of corn meal was issued to us and I have that ration yet. About ten o’clock that night we were ordered on board the cars and away we went to Charleston, where we arrived soon after daylight. We debarked from the cars and were marched into a vacant warehouse on the dock, where we remained until two o’clock p. m. when we were marched on board a ferry boat. The bells jingled, the wheels began to revolve and churn up the water and we are speeding down the harbor. All seems lovely as a June morning, when lo, we are ordered to heave to and tie up to the dock. We were marched off from the boat and up a street. It looked as though the Charleston jail was our destination, instead of that long wished for God’s Country.