Chapter 30 - Page 2

diligent search. Suddenly the long rifle in
the headquarters fort rang out angrily. A fuse shell shrieked across the
prison--close to the tops of the logs, and burst in the woods beyond.
It was answered with a yell of defiance from ten thousand throats.

I sprang up-my heart in my mouth. The long dreaded time had arrived; the
Rebels had opened the massacre in which they must exterminate us, or we
them.

I looked across to the opposite bank, on which were standing twelve
thousand men--erect, excited, defiant. I was sure that at the next shot
they would surge straight against the Stockade like a mighty human
billow, and then a carnage would begin the like of which modern times had
never seen.

The excitement and suspense were terrible. We waited for what seemed
ages for the next gun. It was not fired. Old Winder was merely showing
the prisoners how he could rally the guards to oppose an outbreak.
Though the gun had a shell in it, it was merely a signal, and the guards
came double-quicking up by regiments, going into position in the rifle
pits and the hand-grenade piles.

As we realized what the whole affair meant, we relieved our surcharged
feelings with a few general yells of execration upon Rebels generally,
and upon those around us particularly, and resumed our occupation of
cooking rations, killing lice, and discussing the prospects of exchange
and escape.

The rations, like everything else about us, had steadily grown worse.
A bakery was built outside of the Stockade in May and our meal was baked
there into loaves about the size of brick. Each of us got a half of one
of these for a day's ration. This, and occasionally a small slice of
salt pork, was call that I received. I wish the reader would prepare
himself an object lesson as to how little life can be supported on for
any length of time, by procuring a piece of corn bread the size of an
ordinary brickbat, and a thin slice of pork, and then imagine how he
would fare, with that as his sole daily ration, for long hungry weeks and
months. Dio Lewis satisfied himself that he could sustain life on sixty
cents, a week. I am sure that the food furnished us by the Rebels would
not, at present prices cost one-third that. They pretended to give us
one-third of pound of bacon and one and one-fourth pounds of corn meal.
A week's rations then would be two and one-third pounds of bacon--worth
ten cents, and eight and three-fourths pounds of meal, worth, say, ten
cents more. As a matter of fact, I do not presume that at any time we
got this full ration. It would surprise me to learn that we averaged
two-thirds of it.

The meal was ground very coarse and produced great irrition in the
bowels. We used to have the most frightful cramps that