The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

222 THE MAINE BUGLE.
worth savin'." lie lived till nearly mornincj, alternately pray-
ing and c^roaning. I tell you it was slavery that made the people
of the South so barbarous. And do we not feel a thrill of
exultation when we remember that we, who wore the blue,
helped to destroy it? I do. After daylight we were marched
back into the same old stockade where we waited about two
weeks, as near as I can remember, and then were taken out and
sent to Savannah. We got there just after dark and were
marched through the streets to a board stockade close to the
old Spanish jail. On our way we heard a little girl some eight
years old sing "The Bonny Blue Flag." How pretty her voice,
how we thought of home and thought we'd soon be there.
How little we knew what was in store for us and that many long
weary months of starvation lay between us and God's country.
During our stay here, which was I think four or six weeks,
our rations were good for rebel rations. We had rice meal,
salt, fresh beef from the city market and good water. We
could hear the sunrise and sunset guns at Fort Pulaski and
Hilton Head, fired under the old flag, " God's flag," a good
many of the boys called it. Oh, how I wanted to escape while
we were there. It seemed as if 1 could only get out in the
night I could alsiost swim down to Fort Pulaski, about fifteen
miles, or I might get a dugout. Ikit there was no opportunit)-
whatever. We were carried back to iMillen Junction and put
into a large new stockade with plenty of wood and large clear
brook of good water running through it. But our rations grew
smaller and smaller till it seemed as though we should starve to
death. I was hungry as only a prisoner can understand.
Now I must go back a little. When you see our beautiful
flag's bright folds waving over us the T'ourth of Jidy I sometimes
wonder if anybody but one of us, can think how good
and how beautiful it looks. The Fourth of Jidy,
i S64, I was
obliged to look on the rebel flag and it did seem hard to have
the day pass and not sec the Flag of our Country at all. 1 tell
you it made my heart ache. It was the bluest day I saw during
ni}' imprisonment. () how we hated that emblem of slavery;