But for one moment only were we thus crushed; the next we eagerly sought an avenue for hope. Perhaps they did not choose to recognize us as soldiers, and merely wished to exchange us as civilians,--a matter of perfect indifference to us, provided we were exchanged at all. We looked around to see what foundation we could build on for this pleasant conjecture. Our present apartment contained even more prisoners than that up-stairs. They were not Northern soldiers, but were from all parts of the South. Some of them had been in prison ever since the war broke out, while a few had been arrested for supposed anti-slavery sentiments even before that event, and had lived in loathsome dungeons ever since. There had been a reign of terror in the Southern States preceding the war, as well as after the opening of the contest, which differed from the similar terror in the French revolution mainly in being less theatrical, and in striking humbler victims. A few Northern soldiers were here who had been put in for attempting to escape or for other breaches of prison discipline. Every man in the room had some kind of "a charge" against him. These facts were not calculated to strengthen hopes of exchange, or even weaken fears of further punishment. In the mean time breakfast was brought in. It consisted of a small quantity of thin soup and a very scanty allowance of bread. To our delight the latter was made of wheat flour instead of corn-meal; and all the time we remained in Richmond we received good bread, though it was very deficient in quantity. While we were talking with our new room-mates an officer again entered, and inquired for the men who had last come in. We responded promptly, for hope was again whispering in our hearts that probably there had been some mistake, which would now be rectified, and we be taken up-stairs again. But no such good fortune was in store,--rather the reverse. We were taken out of doors, where a guard waited to remove us to another prison. Again our hearts sank. We crossed the street and marched westward, halting at a desolate-looking building, a few hundred yards from Libby, which we afterwards learned was "CASTLE THUNDER," the far-famed Bastile of the South. Through a guarded door we entered a reception-room and waited for some time. In this interval a fierce-looking, black-whiskered, bustling individual, who I afterwards learned was Chillis, the prison commissary, came by and, looking at us, exclaimed,-- "Bridge-burners, are they? They ought to hang, every man of them; so ought everybody who does anything against the Confederacy." The latter proposition, with the change of one word, precisely suited my own feeling then.