Locations in the memoir

    They put us in some boxcars and sent us to Camp Douglas in Chicago Illinois. I stayed there twenty months. I waited for exchange the first month. But I believed that exchange had played out. I then concluded I was there for the rest of the war be that long or short. I then began to hunt for a job of work that I could make something at. I saw others that could go to the sutler store and buy things I would be glad to have. I went down about the sutler store. I saw lots of men buying, and selling Confederate money. But I could not see at the start how they were making any thing. They were buying at five cents on the dollar. After while I caught on how they were trading. John Morgan’s men were all in Camp Douglas except the commissioned officers. They were in Camp Chase in Ohio. They could have money sent to them from their holms. But the officers would not let them have the greenback. They might bribe a guard with it. They gave them their money in sutlers checks. The sutlers checks was only a small piece of past[e] board saying on one side. Good for five cts. or two dollars. Or what ever the amount is in sutlers goods The other side blank. No name to it. John Morgans men mostly lived in Ky. And had plenty of property at home. They were buying all the green back they could. They gave thirty cts. in checks for twenty five in green back. In case they got a chance to escape from prison; the checks would be worthless to them. There was several men buying Confederate money. They gave five cents for a dollar.

    After I went into Camp Douglas the yankees searched me .Got my watch and everything I had. When I saw how I could make money if I had some money for a start. I went to Billy Brown, one of my neighbors and borrowed five dollars in Confederate money. I promised to pay him when we got to Dixie if no sooner. I sold it for twenty five cts. in checks. I soon found I had made the wrong trade. I then went and bought an other bill. I sold it for twenty five cents in green back. I sold it for thirty cts. in checks. I bought another bill for twenty five cts. in checks. I now had a five cents check of my own. I made it by fare square dealing. It was the first cent I had had in a month. You don’t know how proud I was of it. I went threw the same peramble three times that day. Made fifteen cts of my own money. I spent ten cts. for a cran bury pie I thought it was the best pie I ever ate in my life. That night I lay awake thinking about my new business as hard as I have business of more importance since. Some of the boys predicted that I would soon be broke like some of the boys that got a start. I had thirty cents that night. Twenty five was Billy Browns. I decided to make the thirty cents my capital to operate with I must not spend that. If I make money over that I feel at liberty to spend it, or a part of it. But must never spend my capital. I told all this to my bunk mate. And I told him of a trade or two, I could have made if I had had money enough. He loaned me two dollars. I borrowed it Monday morning paid him two dollars and ten cents every Saturday night. I paid Billy Brown back with a big interest. Afterwhile I paid my bunk mate two dollars and ten cents. And I showed him that I had more than six dollars left. There was no use of borrowing money when I had all I could use of my own. He was glad of my success, but sorry. He could not get that ten cents every week. He was afraid to loan it to any one else. I will come back to this subjet again after a while.

    When we first got to Camp Douglas. The houses were very long. Cut into many rooms by partitions and built down near the ground. When the ground got frozen about a foot thick, then some of the boys began to tunnel out hiding the dirt under the floors. This caused the Yankees to change the program They run off the r[a?]bbet square into streets both ways making four houses wide and about thirteen long making each one to hold one hundred men. And setting them up on post four feet high. I then stayed in barrax fourteen.

    The first winter was verry unregular weather. The weather would be warm. And then extremely cold. The Thirmometer went down twenty nine below zero the first day of 1864. And caught us without wood or coal. We had been drawing coal every third day. New years day was our day to draw coal again. We did not have a bit that morning. The cart drivers swore that the rebs might freese before they would haul coal to them in any such weather. Ordily [orderly] Compton of our company took a squad of men and went to the yankee officers for clothes, blankets, and coal. They all came back loaded down with all those good things we needed so bad. He sent word to all the other ordilies to go and get. We carried our coal untill the weather got warm enough for the carts to bring it to us. We were surprised to see three suns rise at once. All of them were the same size. And of the same brightness. The middle one was the sun. The other ones were sun dogs. They only appear in extreme cold weather. They appear all the time near the North pole to help to warm up that frozen region.

    Sun Dogs or parhelions appear as two “mock suns” on either side of the actual sun in a 22° arc. They are caused by ice crystals refracting the light of the sun and typically occur in cold weather when the sun is near the horizon.

    Another thing that surprised the boys was the snow flyes. They called them house flyes, One of the boys that knew what they were said they are not house flyes. You will never see one of them in the house, nor on the ground where there is no snow. They are more active than house flyes, and they are a little larger, and their wings and legs are a little longer, and their wings set out more from their boddy. They eat nothing but snow. When it gets warm enough for the snow to begin to melt, they all leave.
    

Chionea (commonly called snow flies) is a genus of wingless crane flies. Adults live up to two months in the winter and walk on snow.

    It surprised the boys to see it snow hard all day without seeing a cloud. You could hardly see the sun. The boys would say “This snow is coming from the Rocky Mountains”. The Yankees would say it drifts from the Rockeys. Sometimes the wind would not blow so hard. And then the snow would drift up in piles as high as a mans head. And if the wind would change a little, it would pick up that pile and leave it somewhere else. We had some big snow, and very cold spells the first winter I was there. The second winter was an even tempature. We had forty days at one time jest alike It snowed about shoe mouth deep to start with. And then turned cold. It would snow a little every night. Then clear off. We never saw the sun set in the forty days but could see it rise every morning. About two or three P.M. it would begin to cloud up. About nine or ten it would go to snowing. The snow continued about the same depth forty forty days. The thermomter would be from eight to twelve below every morning At the start, they would stay in pretty close. But they would be out like they did not mind it, before it was over. In one of them cold spells there was a large lot of Johneys brought in from Nashville Tenn. The guard made them stand in a round huddle. Then they went around with a bayonett and jabbed their back. And then made a mark on the ground at their toes and told them they would shoot the first man that crossed it. Some of the men inside was about to smother, and pushed one over the line. The guard shot him. The same bullet passing threw three men. They kept them out there three hours until quite a number of them frost bit. One of them had jest come from Florida as a recruit. He could not stand the cold at Nashville. And could not march. He never saw snow untill he got to Nashville. He liked to have frose to death.

    The first winter I was there they allowed us to sit up untill eight or nine oclock before the beaugle would blow for us to go to bed. One night they did not hear it in the room joining mine and did not blow out the lights. And they hit one of our men in the right arm, making a wound that could have been cured. But they cut it off. By doing so they cut him out of the war. Some of John Morgans men learned him to write back handed with his left hand. The last I heard of him he had a good job of book keeping in Ky. He wrote a beautiful hand. The Yankees got to blowing the beaugle jest before sun up for us to get up, and about sun down for us to go to bed. The Yankees guard would often come and raise the cover to see did we have our pants on, if so we were severily punished. The nights are longer there than they are here. forcing us to lye on the hard planks about seven teen hours out of twenty four. I had the brightest mind then I ever had in my life. The Yankees quarrelled at us then for having so much more sense than them. They had heard of Yankee tricks. But the rebs had many more tricks than them. They were as fraid of the rebs as tigers when we all were duly sober. But when some of the rebs got drunk and began to scream like panthers they would doubled the guard. I have saw it doubled many times for that cause.

    The Yankees were as afraid of us, as if we were tigers when we were duly sober. And if some of us got drunk, and began to scream like panthers they would double the guard. I have saw it doubled many times for that cause. They made us fall into line on the street one day untill they tore up the floare in places, went into every nap sack hunting bottles. Hauled off every canteen, every bottle, and every thing that would hold whisky. And then the officer in command said I reckon I will have a sober croud now. But the next day there was more drunk men than common. We had a plank fence doubled twelve feet high around us. Nothing got inside except threw one gate. It was well guarded. The officer of the guard being present all the time. Everything and every boddy was searched for contra bands Whisky was the most contra band thing that could come in. And there was so much going threw the officer appointed the strongest prohibition officer for an another officer of the guard to stop the whiskey from coming in. But the rebs still got the whiskey.

    I will now add something else to the history of Camp Douglas. When they were trying to pass the Prohibition bill so hard, I met up with a crowd talking on that subject I lisend a while. Then I said if bullets, and bayonetts, and the strongest military law that could be enforced with a plank fence around us could not stop the rebs from getting drunk in Camp Douglas what is the use of passing a cival law here to stop it. It can come in on all the roads. One man said. And where there is no road. One said what prohibition would do. I said I tell what it will do. It will stop all these bar rooms from paying twelve hundred dollars a year for licens. That is a big thing all over the State. And it will cause thousand and thousands of dollars to be sent out of the state for whiskey, and that will be a big thing. During the two years of prohibition I was pedling here. I saw how fast they moved out by the houses for rent. I predicted then for it to bankrupt the state in a few years. Money is hard and scarse. Bank rupsy is getting in sight. I have a little property for a cash sale. I have not had an offer at no price at all. I see so many houses for rent I think of the two years of prohibition. If it is left to a vote of the people we will have whiskey at home without buying it from other states. And it will be better and cheaper. My father in law made peach brandy and bought land with it. He was a sober good man. His four boys were sober men. My wife had three children before she ever saw a drunk man. In this so called enlightened day not many children will be able to remember when they saw the first drunk man.

    Back to Camp Douglas again. I was first a pedler. But when my pains began to hurt so bad and saw so many on cruches I quit short off when I was making fifty cents a day. And went to work on rings, making nothing the first few days. But I learned and improved untill I made pretty good rings. The Yankees had a Kitchen sargant. The rebs called him Old Red. Every body was afraid of him. I gave him a ring worth three dollars for leave to work at the kitchen window. Before I left Camp Douglas I made some rings worth seven dollars. If I had them now I could sell them for one hundred dollars a piece. I made the one I gave to my wife for her engagement ring. I got the name of being as good a ring maker as there was in Camp Douglas and an honest man. I got sick and would have had to go to the horsepittal, and maybe would have died there. But John Morgans men had confidence in me would come and give their order for a ring, and pay me in advance for the ring. When I was well I owed them more than twenty dollars. I made their rings and got out of debt.

    Honesty is the best policy. Some boys I had hired got up this subject one day. They finally concluded that men that gets so rich is obliged to cheat, steal, or defraud in order to get so rich. I quit my work, took a seat with them saying now let me talk a while. When Abraham was called to leave the land of his nativaty. Lot his nephew went with him. When they got there they were poor folks. But God blessed them, until their herds men strove together. God made them very rich because they were honest, good men. God blessed David and Solomon his son for their honesty, and uprightness of heart. And gave them all that an honest heart could wish. And a good name that will never rot. Job was one of the best men I ever heard of. And God told the devil there is none like him. But God suffered the Devil to take all his property and all his children too, in one day. Then he was very poor. But he did not sin and after that God made him one of the richest men of all the east. Folks cannot get a good job and hold it without being good themselves.

    In Camp Douglas we had a barrel to put the bones in at every kitchen. The Guards would not allow us to take a bone out for nothing. The first winter we had more rations than we could eat. But they began to cut down our rations from time to time untill we stayed hungry all the time. Then some of the boys would steal out the bones and bake them around the stove […] lots of oil out of them that was very good to a perishing man. Our rations ran short several times out in the army and I thought I was verry hungry but when our rations were cut down again and express goods were cut off; and they stopped the sutler from selling us anything to eat. We all got hungry. So hungry I could not sleep without dreaming of something to eat. We only eat twice a day. When we would get done eating the boys would curse the keanest, bitterest cursing you ever heard. When we were nearly done eating some of the boys would say “return thanks”, and the cursing would begin. I saw some of the boys going about, looking and hun[ting] for something to eat where they knew there was nothing. One of the guards when he would catch a man stealing bones he would tell him if you are going to be a dog I will learn you how. He would make him get down on hands and feet and trot around after him like a dog, and when he would whistle to him he would make him try to shake his tail, and rair up on him like he loved him. He would get mad with him, and kick him in the side with his heavy boot and he would die before the ambulance would get there. He killed three by kicking them. Two killed three a piece by shooting them. A man was killed not far from me. They had issued a new order to the guard but not to us. We had been making our fires to get breakfast just before sun up. This man was an innocent good man. And he had no more idea of being shot at that time, than I have now. The Yankees had a verry severe way of punishing the rebs. They called it Morgans Mule. It was a scantling two by six on legs twelve feet high. Some times they made them ride too long and then they fainted, and fell off breaking a bone or two nearly every fall. A dog house near by was said to be the worst. Another was what they called reaching for corn. That was to stand stiff kneed and stoop over and touch the ground with your fingers. You may not think it hard, but if you try it a half hour, and then get kicked over on your face then you will know it is hard.

    The smallpox broke out amongst us. The rebs died at the rate of twenty five a day for a while with it. A man that slept rite under me had a light case of it when the smallpox horse pittal was full. No room for light cases. I never had it. I use to make rings until I was tired of setting up. Then I would lie down on my bunk and read the