A BOY’S EXPERIENCE IN THE CIVIL WAR 1860–1865 PRESENTED TO WITH COMPLIMENTS OF Thomas Hughes. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1904 by THOMAS HUGHES, the author, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ During the Civil War. My father, a skillful physician by profession, was by taste and inclination a controversal writer, a contributor to the newspapers, mixing up in the stir of the times. Before the Civil War his energy was devoted to a large and lucrative practice coupled with activities, social and political. At the opening of the struggle between the North and South his sympathies and associations ardently enlisted him in the fortunes of his native State, and he furthered by writing and personal work the adoption of the ordinance of secession which had been referred by the State Convention at Richmond to the Citizens of Virginia to adopt or reject. When the State seceded his ardent advocacy of the Southern cause and his labor in that behalf quickly brought him to the point of either taking the oath of allegiance as a loyal citizen of the United States or submitting to imprisonment. He declined the oath and was sent as a political prisoner in the spring of 1862 to Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio, where he remained for nine months, when a special exchange was secured for him. This latter event he owed to a personal circumstance, one of those matters he usually evidenced an aptitude to turn to account. It occurred thus: one day a number of prisoners recently captured were brought in, and he learned that shortly before, the command to which they had belonged had taken a number of Union prisoners, and among them a brother of Dr. Pancost of Philadelphia. My father who had pursued his medical studies at Philadelphia and had been a student under Dr. Pancost at the Jefferson Medical College wrote to his former instructor, telling him of his brother’s capture and asking him to secure a special exchange of my father for his brother. This he accomplished and through friends my father was extended permission to have his wife and three of his children accompany him by flag of truce through the lines to Richmond. Ample time was allowed him to arrange his affairs for this and he was further permitted to take unlimited baggage. Our route was to Baltimore, to Fortress Monroe, to City Point, Petersburg and Richmond. Baltimore was reached between three and four o’clock in the morning and upon the recommendation of a fellow passenger we sought quarters at the Eutaw House. This hotel, then as now at the northwest corner of Eutaw and Baltimore Streets, was found crowded and we located in the parlor until later in the day a room was assigned us overlooking the court on Eutaw Street.