Speaking of eatables reminds me of an incident.  Joe Darling, of the First Maine, our Chief of Police, had a sister living at Augusta, Ga., who occasionally came to Florence with basket of food and other necessaries for her brother.  On one of these journeys, while sitting in Colonel Iverson’s tent, waiting for her brother to be brought out of prison, she picked out of her basket a nicely browned doughnut and handed it to the guard pacing in front of the tent, with: 

“Here, guard, wouldn’t you like a genuine Yankee doughnut?”

The guard-a lank, loose-jointed Georgia cracker—­who in all his life seen very little more inviting food than the his hominy and molasses, upon which he had been raised, took the cake, turned it over and inspected it curiously for some time without apparently getting the least idea of what it was for, and then handed it back to the donor, saying: 

“Really, mum, I don’t believe I’ve got any use for it”

CHAPTER LXXII.

Dull Winter days—­too weak and too stupid To amuse ourselves—­attempts of the rebels to recruit us into their army—­the class of men they obtained —­vengeance on “The galvanized”—­A singular experience—­rare glimpses of fun—­inability of the rebels to count.

The Rebels continued their efforts to induce prisoners to enlist in their army, and with much better success than at any previous time.  Many men had become so desperate that they were reckless as to what they did.  Home, relatives, friends, happiness—­all they had remembered or looked forward to, all that had nerved them up to endure the present and brave the future—­now seemed separated from them forever by a yawning and impassable chasm.  For many weeks no new prisoners had come in to rouse their drooping courage with news of the progress of our arms towards final victory, or refresh their remembrances of home, and the gladsomeness of “God’s Country.”  Before them they saw nothing but weeks of slow and painful progress towards bitter death.  The other alternative was enlistment in the Rebel army.

Another class went out and joined, with no other intention than to escape at the first opportunity.  They justified their bad faith to the Rebels by recalling the numberless instances of the Rebels’ bad faith to us, and usually closed their arguments in defense of their course with: 

“No oath administered by a Rebel can have any binding obligation.  These men are outlaws who have not only broken their oaths to the Government, but who have deserted from its service, and turned its arms against it.  They are perjurers and traitors, and in addition, the oath they administer to us is under compulsion and for that reason is of no account.”