Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1865-04-06

| wOIhshly about the wagons, tne thoSt IDiS'
cradle, pitiabe mob that ever had mothers,
wives and sisters at home to pray for them.
The new comors looked on amazed, and
GLOW about Belle Islc now" they said
! bitterly to Drake. lie, poor fellow, was
having his first aespondent chill, and sneer-
/ ing at himself for having it, after all his
| fine talk about "backbone;' and finding
reasons for despnir thicken, the harder he
tried to make clbew-room for hope, till al
| together c,nlourded at the muddle, ho
/ flung up thought with "Brain's full and
stomsch's empty, and it's i'll talking b.
tween fall man and fasiiug," and set
about cooking his ra'ions. But first catch
your hare cries Mrs. Glass. Drake had
/ his hare, such MS it was, but found some.
! thing quite as important locking. -wnod.
u Il say, my friend. where do we find fuel?
he asked of man sitting quietly on the
ground.
Where the Tsracltcs found the straw
for their bricks was the answer There
is no special provision made, unless it be an
occasional permit to forage outside, under
Hold off, there don't touch that, man,
unless you want to be cooked yourself for
supper that S the dead line
Drake drew back from light railing run
ming parallel with the enclosure on which
he had nearly laid his hand.
"What the deuce is the dead lineY"
'"The new way to pay old debts, and put
Yankee out of the world cheap: Show so
much as your little finger outside Of that.
and the guard nailayou with a bullet; and
as they like that sort of thing they blaze
away whenever they get chance, which is
once or twice day, for our men expose
themselves voluntarily. When Satan said
Skin for skin. yea, all that man hath will
he give for his life, he hadn't invented the
Stockade Prison"
The man who said these things, in qui-
OF, unexcited way, as if discussing some alb
straction Of the schools, not murder, was
too wan and wasted, too shrunken and des-
pairing, to afford guess as to what man
ner of man he might have been, and too
uakempt and ragged for any inference con-
| cerniDg his rank, having neither jacket, cap
nor shoes, matted hair and beard, torn shirt
and ragged trousers; but his look of resolved
patience, and an occasional smile when he
talked sadder than tears, made Brakes
stout heart twinge with pain. "a strong
soul in feeble body" he said to himself as
he walked on; and furthermore, 1.-The
man that can smile here like that is near
heaven and fit for it."
Presently he came on farmer selling
wood by the stick. price in proportion to its
size. and as many times its value as the
Rebel, by his own showing, exceeds the
Yankee. Drake had money, spite ofsearch-
ing. He had hidden it but L for.
bear to tell of what ingenious shift he had
availed himself for remember that, spite
OF its we'll known loyalty, the Atlantic
Monthly" runs the blockade. First he pass
| nd bn ,,r,1opoo nnllipn him, hu tha
sleeve, and searched lynx-eyed for chips or
twigs, over ground secured daily. in such
faint hope as his. by thousands; but he
might as well have dragged brook for the
wreck of seventy. four among its pebbles.
Having wasted precious halfhour of ia
ding daylight. he came back to the dealer
to find his stock on the rise; for the influx
of new comers had produced an upward
tendency in market sensitive as that OF
Wall street. Lest it should swell quite be,
yond the compass of his pocket, he made
haste to buy,-scores of msagre wretches
looking anxiously on. That pitifnl sight
made his heart sore again; and he hardly
persuaded himself to take his wood and be
off. till he remembered the poor fellow
whom he had left resigned and hopeless
sitting quietly on the ground while all was
eager stir about him, and hurried back tc
the spot where he had seen him to find him
gone He had crawled away, and was los
in that great throng.
Not to be baked entirely, Drake shared
his firing with those around him; and Vir.
tue, in place of her usual promissory note
gave him his reward instantly, in the shape
of tin cup belonging to one of the party
and their sole cooking utensil, for the prison
authorities furnish none. His rations-a
day rations, remember--were eight ounces
of Indian meal cob and kernel grounG
together las with us for pigs,) and sour
Ia common occurrence, and two ounces O.
condemned pork, mot to appear again in
our pages, as it proved too strong for ever
poor Drake's hunger) He brought wate
in the cup from ditch that traversed th'
inclosure, and filtered 1t through bit o
cleth torn from his shirt; and the meal be
ing mixed with water, (salt was not ever
hinted at, the market price of that article
being four dollars pound at Andersonville,
it was placed on strip of wood before tn,
fire to bake up to the halfraw point. ,ha
being the highest perfection attainable il
Brakes kitchen; for a range and q steady
: heart find the baking of meal SO mixed M
easy matter. Eight ounces OF meal make
! cake six inches long, five broad, and hal
HH lnCu tulCht tudl Is to shy, DIhhc 0 uiii
, ner and supper for that day, and his break
/, fast and dinner for the next day, were il
the mass six inches long, five inches broad
4 and half an inch thick Give the figure
, an Indian-meal consistency, you who ar
not of that order of Stoics that endnres it
, neighbours sufferings without groan. Tr
. the experiment in your own kitcken.-
One baking will carry conviction farthe
than patches Of statistics. Drake bein
Y famished, chose to tako four meals in on
-improvident man! That done, he wer
a tobed, quite an elaborate arrangement, a
n practiced among us, what with taking o
& the clothes, and possibly washing an
e combng, and pulling up of sheets and CO..
, erlets, and fitting Of pillows to neck an
/ shoulders; but nothing can be more simpl
a than the way they doit there. You ju'
II lie down wherever you are, and sleep if yo
5, can. Drake could and did sleep mo-
n soundly. 1884, -JsI
IS This was our hero's first taste of prise
y life But little reading and much tai
5, about camp-fires and behind earth-works-
,r when there was lull in the storm of sh,
r, and shell-had etched out for him certa
D. crude theories, for which he was as ready
rt do battle as any other hot,hesded lad
" tventy-three. starvation is the masks
E. battery that battles the. deuce with us all
N he insisted; and we must take that, or