The jail was a large octagonal brick structure, six stories high. In the center of each square was a cell surrounding which was a hall of good dimensions. The building also had an addition four stories high, and in this addition were kept captives from the 54th Massachusetts (colored) Infantry, who were treated with terrible brutality. They were almost naked, and starving, and you could hear their cry of "_Bread!_ BREAD! BREAD!" all through the night and day. In the octagonal part of the prison there was also a crowd of peculiar looking half-breeds of both sexes. These were a mystery to me which I never cleared up. All I know is they were turned out in the yard every morning, and there remained until 4 P.M., when they were driven inside again by the turnkey. It was a strange sight and one never explained to us. My theory, however, is that this motley crowd was composed of local prisoners, probably guilty of violating the laws of the community, with perhaps some deserters and runaway slaves. At any rate we saw enough in the conduct of this particular crowd to prove that their rules of morality were away below par. In order to get out of the mud and free myself from the mosquitoes, I was permitted to occupy one of the old cells at night and sleep on the bare floor, awaiting the regular hour of the turnkey for egress and ingress, and now and then my gaze would be attracted toward the gloomy old gallows, the weight of which (used to swing the unfortunate victim into eternity) was half buried in the ground, where it had sunk after performing its last execution, an additional incentive to melancholy speculation. Upon the next corner north was another large building used for a workhouse; the back part was enclosed by a brick wall and stockade extending around another yard. In the center of this yard a post was set in the ground, and nearly every morning, between nine and ten o'clock, we could hear a whizzing sound, followed by yells. Then we understood; the post was a whipping-post, and the master of the cat o' nine tails was at work upon some victim, in all probability a negro who had been on the street after hours, or guilty of some trifling digression of the rules and regulations of the slave code, as a consequence had been sentenced by the police judge to receive so many lashes on his bare back. We often had to stop our ears, so frightful were the cries of some of the victims of this barbarous punishment, dealt out to human beings for simply exercising a God-given right to think and act for themselves.