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

236 THE MAINE BUGLE.
much when an officer came along and the guard had to lay the
food down on a box behind him to salute the officer. That
was my chance, and grabbing the bread, and liver I went up
stairs, and didn't I have a treat
The last of September our boys began to tunnel out from
the cellar where the rebs had taken out the tobacco. A large
number got away through the tunnel. How many escaped or
how many were recaptured 1 do not know, for not one that
went out through the tunnel was brought back into the building
while I was there. This escape so enraged the rebs that they
cut our scant rations off for fi.ve days, which finished many a
poor fellow who was nearly dead before. The fifth day an
officer came into our room with a fine fat blood hound. When
the dog was near me I petted him and managed to detain him
there until the officer went up stairs. I spoke to a Fourteenth
Ikooklyn boy who had a knife. I took the dog by the top
of his head and yanked it up while the Fourteenth boy cut his
throat. When the officer came down the dog was eaten up and
there was not so much as a blood spot to show what had
become of him. The boys had caught the blood in their cups
and drank it as fast as it flowed. The officer raved awhile but
soon left without bidding us good-bye.
Matters continued thus until the tenth of October, as I recall
it, when looking from the window, standing at the proper
distance, I thought I saw a man that I used to go to school
,with when a boy but who had been in the south for some
years. I called to him from the window to attract his attention.
He looked up, recognized me, called me by name and at the
same time drew his revolver and fired si.x shots at me through
the window, two of which cut the hair on my head, which con-
vinced me that he was not shooting for a sham, but to hit.
1 think it was the twenty-seventh of October, a day never to
be forgotten by me, when in the afternoon an officer came into
the builtling, called the names of some fifty of us, whom the)' did
not think would li\'f, and told us to pick up our traps and be
ready to go down the James river by 4
I'. M. as we were to be