The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-06-07

away-and reckon they can make it,
for they know the country pretty we'll
they'll have to thank God and the Hol-
ston. And now, what are you going to
do with me, majorY'
"rll have to send you over to Bristol.
Yesterday we picked up some of the
Eleventh Kentucky; they gave us id
hard fight too You'll find a lot of your
people at Bristol, and when Longstreet
bags Burnside-as he'll be sure to do in
few days, for he's got him penned in
you'll have lots Of GOOD company in
Libby for the winter"
On neither side, so long as men were
not absolutely vulgar or insulting, and
not even then if their captors set the ex-
ample, were men debarred from speak
ing their minds because they were pris-
oners; indeed, it was considered their
privilege to defend themselves and their
cause with the only weapon left them.
Although not man of words, Captain
Forbes retorted that when Burnside's
men were forced to surrender, Long
street would not have enough men left
to guard them.
Unnecessary here to tell what fol-
lowed with Harris. In charge of a SER
geant and mounted detail, Captain
Forbes and his six men were at once
marched to Bristol on foot, which point
they reached at midnight, but it was
only to find that the Union prisoners
who had been assembled there the day
before were sent on to Richmond.
While with the troopers of the Fourth
Tennessee, Confederate, the captain and
his men Jared very well, but as soon as
they were turned over to the provost
marshal at Bristol they became the prey
of the hated home guards, and were
robbed of their overcoats, boots and hats
and forced to wear the rags of their de-
spoilers or go without sufficient clothing.
The next morning a number of men
captured at Campbell's Station arrived,
and with these the captain and his party
were sent on to Richmond, as all sup
posed, but that afternoon they were
taken from the cars at Danville and the
enlisted men marched to one tobacco
warehouse and the officers to another
After answering the stereotyped ques-
tions as to his name, age, rank, regi-
ment and place of capture, Captain
Forbes was taken to the upper floor of
the bleak, barnlike warehouse, and here
he found thirteen officers, all of them
recently captured, but looking hungry
and cold, for every man of them had
been forced to swap his warm blue over
coat for ragged gray one.
Captain Forbes had hardly set foot on
the head of the heavy steps that led to
the floor on which the officers were i'm
prisoned, when he found himself face to
face with ragged, pale young man who
caught him in his arms and called out,
"My God, Cousin Howard, I'm sorry
they've got you, for this place is worse
than hip
The man who greeted Forbes with this
salutation was Harry Bowen, his cou-
sin, and first lieutenant in the Second
Mounted Rifles, che man whom the con-
demned prisoner up at Camp Dick Rob
inson declared could vouch for the fact
that he, Edward Campbell, was down
on the Holston in east Tennessee on the
day when Samuel Rogers was killed at
Bardstown, Kentucky, one hundred and
eighty miles away.
Ever since parting with Jennie Camp
bell the fate of her brother-on her ac-
count had troubled the captains
thoughts and dreams. Here was the
man who could free the condemned
from the charge of murder, the charge
that led to his conviction-that is, if her
story were true-but for the present
Forbes suppressed his intense curiosity.
No man who has not been a prisoner
of war, shut out from all communica-
ton with his friends and the world for
weeks, and it may be for long, heart
hungry months, can imagine the awful
anxiety with which the older prisoner
greets the last conner, particularly if he
be one who can tell him something of
his family, in addition to reporting the
condition of his regiment and the pros
poets of his cause.
After feeding his cousin on some of the
corn bread and bacon he had left, for the
rations at Danville were always better
and fuller than at Libby, Harry Bowen
drew him over to the corner where he
slept, with some corn shucks for a bed
and a single blanket for a cover, and
there they sat down while the captain
made a report, in which he took care to
keep back anything that might add to
the misery of his young kinsman. Then
he told the story of his own capture, and
in exchange asked for Harry's, hoping
in this way to get, without any sugges-
ton, confirmation of Edward Camp
bells statement.
Howard, l know how you felt toward
at least one of our neighbors before the
trouble began, and I'll confess there are
no girls the wonanly superiors of Jen-
ME Campbell in Madison, although she's
as hateful and bitter as she is pretty;
but, by all the gods of Greece, her broth
er is the d-dest scoundrel that ever dis
graced the name Of soldier, and if he
and I don't meet again in this war, and
we both survive it, this broad earth will
be all too small to hold him and mer'
The young mans voice trembled with
hot Indignation as he said this, and to
ease the feelings stirred up by the men
tio,, of Edward Camnhe11's mama ba