"No matter what you're doin', one thing am very sartin, Dat ebery one is ready from dis prison to be startin'; De very sad reflection makes eberybody grieve, For not a single debbil knows when he's gwine to leave.
"Now white folks here's a moral: There's nothin' true below, This world am but a 'tater patch, de debbil has the hoe; Ebery one sees trouble here, go you near and far, But the most unlucky debbil am the prisoner of war."
These lines give in a crude way, a pretty correct account of the doings in the prison barracks.
I preserved a copy of Prison rules, which follows:
"HEADQUARTERS, FORT DELAWARE, DEL., _July 8, 1864_.
III. Breakfast at 8 A. M. Dinner at 4 P. M.
IV. Sergeants in charge of prisoners will exact from them strict compliance with the above calls, which will be regularly enforced, and must promptly report to the officer in charge the number present and absent, sick, etc., and any who are guilty of insubordination or any violation of the Rules of Prison. They must also notify their men that if they do not promptly obey any order given them by a sentinel, officer or man in charge of them, they will be shot.
V. Sergeants in charge will be held responsible for the due execution of these Rules, and for the regular accounting for the full number of their men.
BRIG.-GENL. A. SCHOEPF. GEO. W. AHL, Capt. & A. A. A. G."
OFF FOR CHARLESTON—ALLEGED RETALIATION—ON SHIPBOARD—RUN AGROUND—SHORT OF WATER—ON MORRIS ISLAND—IN STOCKADE—UNDER FIRE—PRISON RULES
I remained at Fort Delaware until the 20th of August, 1864. Some time previous to this, seventy-five field officers confined at Fort Delaware were selected for retaliation, as the Yankees called it, to be put under fire of the Confederate guns, on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor.
The Confederates had hospitals in one section of the city of Charleston, S. C., with yellow flags flying over them. The Yankees, in shelling the city from their batteries on Morris Island, were in the habit of shelling these hospitals, and were notified that some of their officers, who were held as prisoners of war, would be placed in or near the hospitals. The Yankees did not heed this, but prepared to put Confederate prisoners under fire of Confederate guns, when firing on Yankee batteries on Morris Island.