Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-02-28
THE BURNSIDE EXPEDITION.
From our Own Correspondent,

7 run oul ONl Correspondents
On BOARD STEAMER NEW YORK, bound for
Elizabeth City, Feb 10, 1862
Since my last letter, giving you a rapid &C.
count of the uattle, time with us has passed
very rapidly, and our regiment has been in
duty at camp Foster, guarding the prisoners,
till yesterday, when fourteen hundred of them
were put on the steamers New York and Ad-
miral and are to be taken to Elizabeth City,
where they are to be exchanged ior the fit.
teenth boys, which will make our song reali-
ty-"We are going TO avenge the fifteenth
bows" Eleven companies of their rebel pris.
oneIs are on board our steamer, and company
A are detailed to guard them on their journey
home, leaving the other companies Of the reg
iment on the island.
THE PRISONERS DESCRIBED.
A little description of the appearance and
embarkation OF the cream of the southern army
may not be uninteresting to the many readers
OF your paper Yesterday morning, seven
hundred of them were marched from their
quart rs and put on the Pilot Boy, with bag
and baggage, and about the same number on
the Stern Wheeler-or WheeiJGTot0, as we call
hcr-and were taken to the two steamers be
fore named. Then the Pilot Boy came up
alongside the New York, and such sight as
we witnessed beggars description. You might
rake over all the state prisons, jails, aad aims
houses of the north. and such a set OF men you
could not hud. No two were dressed alike
and no two had blankets or knapsacks of the
same description and there were not twenty
intelligent looking men in the crowd. Nearly
all their clothing consisted of cotton, some
with snuffc0lored pants and coats, others with
grayish white, and few blankets. They had
carpeting in rolls dashed upon tlreir backs, of
every variety OF color and description, with
bedguilts OF all shades, some of which were
made of patchwork about an inch square, and
they had the appearance of having been hand
ed down from Mother Eve, or nearly as far
| back as that.
You can have no idea of the sights, and
wish that could describe to you the manner
in which they carried their cothing,-some
few had a kind Of knapsack, but most OF them
had pillo,cs holsters, or small beds made of
ticking, stuffed full and swung over their Shout.
ders some had meal bags unlyr their arms,
Others trunks and boxes ashed upon their
backs with bed cord, and many of them had,
besides all these, feather beds ashed about
them, with old boots and shoes tied all over
their person No pen can desc ibe the scene,
and we asked ourselves, "lf this is the cream
Of the southern army, what must the milk
which is left be 2" Such ignorance, and such
filth, you never imagined; there is not one in
ten of them who can either read or write and
they cannot tell what they are fighting for.
But what surprises them mos. OF all is to see
such soldiers as ours, and TO he treated SO
well. Many OF them say that their people
who have got money stay at home and enjoy
themselves, and send all the poor 10 do the
fighting, and declare if they ever are released
they will never enlist again; while others pro-
claim that they will fight ill the last man of
them is dead