Our vessel steamed up along side the New York and made fast. A gang plank was laid to connect the two vessels, and at 4 o’clock, December 10th, 1864, I stepped under the protection of our flag and bade a long and glad farewell to Dixie.
After we had been delivered on board the New York we were registered by name, company and regiment, and then a new uniform was given us and then—can it be possible, a whole plate full of pork and hard-tack, and a quart cup of coffee. And all this luxury for one man! Surely our stomach will be surprised at such princely treatment. After receiving our supper and clothing we were sent on board another vessel, a receiving ship, which was lashed to the New York. Here we sat down on our bundle of clothes and ate our supper. If I was to undertake to tell how good that greasy boiled pork and that dry hard-tack and that muddy black coffee tasted, I am afraid my readers would laugh, but try it yourself and see where the laugh comes in. After supper we exchanged our dirty, lousy rags for the new, clean, soft uniform donated to us by Uncle Sam.
This was Saturday night. Monday morning we are on the good ship United States as she turns her prow out of Charleston harbor. We pass out over the bars and we are upon the broad Atlantic. Wednesday morning about 4 o’clock we heave to under the guns of the Rip Raps, at the entrance of Chespeake Bay, and reported to the commandant. The vessel is pronounced all right, and away we go up the bay. We reach Annapolis at 10 p. m. and are marched to Cottage Grove Barracks. Here we get a good bath, well rubbed in by a muscular fellow, detailed for the purpose. I began to think he would take the grime and dirt off from me if he had to take the cuticle with it. We exchanged clothing here and were then marched to Camp Parole, four miles from Annapolis. Here we were paid one month’s pay together with the commutation money for clothing and rations which we had not drawn during the period of our imprisonment. On the 24th I received a furlough and started for the home of my brother in western New York, where I arrived on the 26th, and here ends my story.
Of all the men who had charge of of prisoners and who are responsible for their barbarous treatment, only one was ever brought to punishment. “Majah” Ross was burned in a hotel at Lynchburg, Va., in the spring of 1866. General Winder dropped dead while entering his tent at Florence, S. C., on the 1st of January, 1865.