Arriving at the wharves, we were placed on board of a steam vessel, which proved to be a blockade runner, and were carried out to a fleet of vessels under the walls of Fort Sumter, which our government had provided for the transport of prisoners. I was placed on board a ship called the _United States_, with a number of my fellow-prisoners. Those of us who were officers were assigned by the captain of the ship to staterooms. We found that there were nine hundred prisoners on board from Andersonville and Florence, some of them in the last stages of emaciation. Two or three of them died on the voyage from Charleston to Annapolis, and their bodies were buried in the sea. The Sanitary Commission had an agent on board, with an ample supply of underclothing. I at once got rid of the clothing which I had worn so long in the prison, throwing it overboard, and accepted with alacrity the new and clean clothing given me by the agent of the Sanitary Commission. We lay at anchor one night in Charleston harbor, and the next day sailed for Annapolis, Md. Arriving at that point, we found each prisoner had been granted a thirty days' leave of absence. I telegraphed my father of my arrival at Annapolis, and found, on reaching home, that he could hardly bring himself to believe it. We went from Annapolis to Washington to obtain our pay, which had been accumulating during the period of our imprisonment. I purchased new clothing, and then joyfully started for home. I had served nearly three years, and my regiment had been mustered out of service during the period of my imprisonment, its time having expired. Some of its members had re-enlisted, and were consolidated with the Seventh Rhode Island; but I felt that I had done my duty, and that I was entitled to withdraw from the service, so I sent in my resignation direct to the Secretary of War at Washington, accompanying it with a surgeon's certificate of my health, and setting forth the facts of my service and my imprisonment. I obtained the endorsement of the Governor of the State to my application, and it came back in a few days accepted, and I was out of the service. I have often felt that I would have been tempted to return had I known that the war would end as soon as it subsequently did, so as to have had the satisfaction of being in at the close, if possible. I have never regretted my being in the army during that most trying and critical period of our country. I feel as did the Westerner who said that he would not part with his experiences for a hundred thousand dollars, and he would not go through with it again for a hundred million. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Battle of the Crater and Experiences of Prison Life, by Sumner Upham Shearman