twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and one dollar pieces.  This was the prison currency.  The prison name for it was “sheepskin.”  The prison officials would not allow us to have the “cold cash,” lest we should enter into a combination and bribe an important guard, thereby effecting an escape.  The “sheepskin” answered every other purpose for trade.  We had a suttler who was a suttler right.  He was a real, genuine, down-east Yankee.  He loved money ("sheepskins” were money to him), and he would furnish us with anything we wanted for plenty “sheepskins.”  He would even furnish whiskey “on the sly,” which was positively prohibited by the prison regulations.  He had only to go to headquarters at the close of the day and have his “sheepskins” cashed in genuine greenbacks, and he went away happy and serene, to dream of more “sheepskins.”

The amusements and diversions of prison life are wonderful to contemplate.  They were numerous and varied.  A man could find anything to suit his inclinations.  Of all the many diversions, gaming was probably the most prominent, and stands at the head of the list.  By common consent, it seemed that a certain part of the open court was set aside for gaming purposes.  It made no difference how severe the weather was, these gaming tables were always in full blast.  A man could amuse himself with any game at cards that he desired.  There were “farrow bank,” “chuck-a-luck,” “brag,” “eucher,” “draw poker,” “straight poker,” “seven-up,” “five-up,” and most prominent of all, a French game, pronounced in Fort Delaware “vang-tu-aug,” meaning twenty-one.  All these were games for “sheepskins”—­bets, five cents; limit, ten cents.  All were conducted on a high plane of honor.  If a dealer or player was detected in attempting anything that was unclean, he was tried in court, convicted, and punished.

There were courts and debating societies; classes in French, Spanish, and Greek.  There were Bible students and students in the arts and sciences prosecuting their varied studies.  The gutta-percha ring-makers were quite numerous, and it was really astonishing to see the quality of the work turned out, being handsomely engraved and inlaid with silver.  There were diversion and amusement for everybody and every class of men, except croakers and grumblers.  They had no lot, parcel, or place, and such characters were not permitted to indulge in their evil forebodings.  They had to be men, and real live men, too.  The reader may desire to know whence all the books, cards, materials, etc., came.  I answer, from the Yankee suttler, for “sheepskins.”