The National tribune., 1897-10-14

| At night the guards in the perehes
around the Stockade called out every
half hour, so as to show the officers that
that they were awake and attending TO
their duty. The formula for this ran
thus:
"Post numbah one; half past eight
o'clock, and a-lPs WE'LL"
Post No. 2 repeated this cry, and so
/ it went around.
One evening, when our anxiety as to
Atlanta was wrought to the highest pitch,
one Of the guards sang out:
Post numbah foah-halfpast eight
! o'clock-and Atlanta's gone to -"
The heart of every man within hear
ing leaped to his mouth. We looked
toward each other, almost speeches. with
glad surprise, and then gasped out:
Z" Did you hear that?"
The next instant such ringing cheer
burst out as wells spontaneously from the
Threats and hearts of men in the first
ecstatic moments of victory-a cheer to
lungs had long been strangers.
The shout was taken up all over the
prison. Even those who had not heard
the guard understood that it meant
,"Atlanta was ours, and fairly won" and
they took up the reclamation with as
much enthusiasm as we had begun it.
All thoughts of sleep were put to flight:
We would have a season of rejoicing.
Little knots gathered together, debated
the news, and INDUCED in the most
sanguine hopes as to the effect upon the
rebels. In some parts of the Stockade
stump speeches were made. / believe
that Boston Corbett and his party organ
lied a prayer and praise meeting.
In our corner We stirred up our tune
full friend "Nosey," who sang again the
grand old patriotic hymns that set our
thin blood to bounding, and made US
remember that we were still Union sol
diers, with higher hopes than that of
starving and dying in Andersonville.
He sang the ever-glorious Star-Spangled
Banner, as he used to sing it around the
campfire in happier days, when we we're
in the field. He sang the rousing Orally
Round the Flag" with its wealth of
patriotic fire and martial vigor, and we,
with Threats hoarse from shouting, joined
in the chorus until the welkin rang
again.
A few days later-on the evening of
the 9th of September-the rebel Ser
geants who called the roll entered the
Stockade, and each assembling his squads,
addressing them as follows:
PRISONERS: am instructed by Gen.
Winder to inform you that a general
exchange has been agreed upon. Twenty
thous md men will be exchanged imme-
diately at Savannah, where your vessels
are now waiting for you. Detachments
from One to Ten will prepare to leave
early tomorrow morning"
The excitement that this news pro-
duced was simply indescribable l have
seen men in every possible exigency that
can confront men, and large proper
ton viewed that which impended over
them with at least outward composure.
The boys around me had endured all
that We suffered with stoical frmness.
Groans from pain-racked bodies could
not be repressed, and bitter curses and
maledlctlons against the rebels leaped
unbidden to the lips at the slightest occa-
sion, but there was no murmuring or
whining. There was not day--hardly
an hour-in which one did not see such
exhibitions of manly fortitude as made
him proud of belonging to a race of
which every individual was hero.
But the emotion which pain and
suffering and danger could not develop.
JOY could, and boys sang, and shouted
and cried, and danced as if in delir-
ium. Goods country" farer than the
sweet promised land of Canaan APP
peared to the rapt vision of the Hebrew
poet-prophet, spread out in glad vista
before the minds eye of every one.
1t had come-at last it had come
that which he had so longed for, wished
for, prayed for, dreamed of; schemed,
planned, toiled for, and for which went
up the last earnest dying wish of the
thousands of our comrades who would
now know no exchange save into that
eternal Gods country" where
sickness and sorrow pain and death
Are felt and feared no more"
Our preparations " for leaving we're
few and simple. When the morning
came, and shortly after the order to !
move, Andrews and l picked up our