George Harris

“ He replied, that if upon my arrival in Washington that fact should appear, I would be released. He ordered me to be taken to a Captain Townsend, who had charge of the prisoners. I declared my purpose to return home for a change of underclothing before I would consent to go, and he might use his pleasure either to take my pledge to return, or to send a man with me as a guard. Yankee-like, he preferred the latter alternative, as, having no such regard for his own word as to prefer faithfulness to a pledge to life itself, he could not believe it to be a trait in the character of any other. ”

“ Thus these gallant fellows who, about 700 strong, had started out, as they said, expressly to catch Mosby, succeeded in capturing thirty-two citizens, in stealing some twenty-five horses, robbing private citizens along the whole line of their march of all kinds of supplies, and through fear of an attack made, on their return, a march of not less than forty-five or fifty miles in one day. ”

“ We were shown many indulgencies, too, until it was ascertained that the most of us would not even take a parole such as they were administering to many citizen prisoners; when suddenly we were informed that we were to be sent off to Fort Delaware, to be subjected at that abode of horrors to severe treatment, in retaliation for treatment of a similar character alleged to have been extended to citizens of the North in Southern prisons. And here we are, exposed in a degree that threatens seriously our health, if not the lives of some of our party. ”