At that time the whole Rebel Army was encamped near Richmond, and in consequence it availed nothing to be outside the walls of the prison. The escaped prisoners were in a day or two brought back and put in irons. While they were gone we had with some success answered for their names at Roll Call from a distant part of the room. We devised a way of unlocking the irons, and by putting a detail of our men to give warning of the approach of officials, were able to give some relief to the sufferers. The Commander of the Prison was the notorious Wirtz, afterwards hung for cruelty to prisoners by the United States Government. One of his juniors was a Lieutenant Todd, said to be a brother of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. He was always abusing Lincoln, and was especially strict and disagreeable, even more so than his superior, Wirtz. We formed a society, and held meetings, at which speeches were made and stories told, more or less accurate. When any new officers, taken on the various battlefields, came, we initiated them, and, in the openness of their confidence, got from them the story of their early lives and loves, which afforded us amusement, until they discovered a way to be brief in their statements. The privates, who were mostly intelligent volunteers, had similar difficulty in passing time. They had, however, one successful thing which interested them for a time. The money then in circulation in Richmond consisted entirely of paper money, in the form of Corporation notes, and those of business firms, plank roads, or private bankers, etc. Our men discovered in their quarters a half barrel of such material, needing only to be signed and issued. This was readily accomplished, and as they took care to have the issue in fractional amounts, it was never questioned, and served its purpose of increasing the Currency of the Realm. Through the kindness of one of the guards, this served to supply them with tea and tobacco purchased for them in the city. One day General Winder, a former member of the U.S.A., now commanding the District of Richmond, came with the staff in full uniform to make an official visit to the prison. He read an order of the Confederate War Department, directing him to select Officers bearing the highest rank, to be held as hostage for the lives of as many Privateer men who were held in Federal Prisons under the charge of piracy on the High Seas. The order required the hostages to be confined in the cells reserved for prisoners accused of infamous crimes. The hostages selected, seven in number, were under this order, taken to Henrico County Jail, a stone building in Richmond, with high windows looking out upon a stone wall not ten feet off, of equal height with the jail.