miles, and the papers report numerous deserters, who relate doleful tales of scarcity, hardships and despondency within the Confederate lines. How chafing and irritating this protracted confinement in a Yankee bastile is to a Confederate soldier, who sees and keenly feels the great necessity for his presence in the Southern army by the side of his old comrades, now sorely pressed and well nigh overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, and suffering from want of sufficient food and too great loss of sleep and necessary rest. If I could be released from this loathed imprisonment, I would gladly report on my crutches for duty with my company in the trenches around beleaguered Petersburg, the heroic "Cockade City." For, while I could neither charge nor retreat, should either be ordered, yet I could cheer by my words and inspire by my presence those who might be dispirited or despondent.
April 2d and 3d—The appalling news of the evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg has reached us, and the Yankee papers are frantic in their exultant rejoicings. We have feared and rather expected this dreaded event, for General Lee's excessive losses from battle, by death and wounds, prisoners, disease and desertion, with no reinforcements whatever, taught us that the evacuation of the gallant Confederate capital was inevitable. I suppose our peerless chieftain will retreat to Lynchburg, or perhaps to North Carolina, and there unite his shattered forces with the army of General Joseph E. Johnston. "There's life in the old land yet," and Lee and Johnston, with their small but veteran armies united, having no longer to guard thousands of miles of frontier, will yet wrest victory and independence for the Confederacy from the immense hosts of Yankees, Germans, Irish, English, Canadians and negroes, ex-slaves, composing the powerful armies under Grant and Sherman. Would that the 7,000 or 8,000 Confederates now confined at Fort Delaware, and their suffering but unconquered comrades at Johnson's Island, Point Lookout, Camp Chase, Camp Douglas, Rock Island, Elmira and other places could join the closely pressed, worn out, starving, but ever faithful and gallant band now retreating and fighting step by step, trusting implicitly in the superb leadership of their idolized commander and his brave lieutenants Longstreet, Ewell, Early, Gordon, Hampton, Pickett and the rest. How quickly the tide of battle would turn, and how speedily glorious victory would again perch upon our banners! It is very hard, bitter, indeed, to endure this cruel, crushing confinement, while our comrades need our aid so greatly. Still I realize the fact
