It happened, however, that one day the rebel surgeon accidentally tore his coat across the breast, and turning to Major H. said, he would give him a bottle of wine if he would repair it. "Yes, sir," said the major, "if you will furnish me with a needle, thread, and a few other indispensables, I will take the whole suit and make it look very different." He added, "the fact is, I would rather do anything than rust in idleness in this d----d prison." Finding that he spoke seriously, and as if it were an ordinary business, the Confederate sawbones, who had a lively appreciation of Yankee handicraft, accepted the offer, and all next day the major was hard at work clipping and scouring and pressing the surgeon's uniform, every now and then the owner thereof passing by and smiling approval; and it was remarked that his face wore that complacent expression common to all good men when they have furnished employment for idle hands--and it is not going to cost them anything.
The same evening, however, when the work, so neatly done, was finished, the major very quietly slipped it upon his own dignified person, and taking with him a fellow-prisoner as "hospital steward," coolly walked past the guard, remarking, to the great consternation of that personage, "My friend, there are unmistakable indications of _cerebro-spinal meningitis_ in your eyes. Come over to the hospital as soon as you are relieved, and I will see what can be done for you," walked out into the street, and neither he nor the "hospital steward" was heard of again until they reached the Federal lines.
The devices resorted to, to effect an escape, were as ingenious as they were numerous, and for a short time the most popular and successful _ruse_ was for the prisoners to get into the hospital, simulate death, and, while left unguarded in the dead-house, to escape. The difference, however, between the tally of the deaths and the burials ultimately attracted the attention of the authorities, and that was stopped.
It will be remembered that while young Glazier was fighting his last fight prior to his capture upon the nineteenth of October, the family at home were gathered around his sister's dying bed, when her gentle spirit winged its flight to Heaven. From that day until the twenty-ninth of November, he had received no news of his family, and consequently, up to that time, was ignorant of her decease. It had been his habit during the weary hours of his prison life, to overcome the tendency to despair from brooding over his misfortunes--which is common to all human beings in trouble--to fix his thought upon the loved ones at home. His imagination constantly conjured up pictures of his parents, his sisters and brothers, and placed them amid the rustic surroundings of his boyhood's home. Even while in the hospital, and tossing with fever upon his bed, the visions which haunted him were not visions of red-handed war, but of quiet country life, where his kindred filled their several spheres of duty. He had never thought of them, except collectively. Although he had, from time to time, felt apprehensive that "Elvi" was somewhat delicate, he never had the slightest fear that her life was thereby endangered. Hence, when the sad news arrived, it came as a terrible surprise. His sisters had been the objects of his peculiar care. The relation he had borne to them, young as he was, was that of a father, as well as brother. He never wearied of devising plans for their intellectual improvement. He made it his peculiar care that they should be thoroughly educated, and that, while intellectually robust, none of the soft down and bloom of true womanhood should be brushed away in the process. They were his memory's "good angels" even in sleep; for what must have been his dreams in the midst of such surroundings, if he had not had them to think of!