CHAPTER XXI.
It has been hinted that the lines of this road were extended from time to time, until they reached far into the slave States, and that the experience and information of the conductors enabled them to render aid to our soldiers when escaping from rebel prisons, that could not have been had from any other source. W. E—— was one of a large lot of prisoners who were put into that horrible pen at Andersonville. He enlisted in a regiment that went from northern Illinois under General Hurlbut, though he was horn, and lived until he was sixteen years old, in Perrysburgh, Cattaraugus Co. I knew him well—the last time I saw him was at Belvidere, Ill., soon after his return. When he entered the prison at twenty years of age, few men could boast of a more hardy constitution, hut he was starved to a mere skeleton, reduced from 172 pounds weight to less than 70 pounds. He reached home, but never recovered. Pie died soon after, and said he should have died in prison had he not “determined he would not;” his indomitable “pluck” kept him alive. The brutalities inflicted on the prisoners, and the systematic starvation to which they were subjected by the Southern Democrats who came up to New York to aid Northern Copperheads in making a platform and nominating candidates for Presi-
