One morning our jailor came to our room, and asked us if we knew John Wollam. We hesitated to answer, as we could not fathom the motives of the inquiry. But even while we deliberated among ourselves, John came up, and ended our doubts by greeting us heartily. He had been parted from us some three weeks, and in that time had suffered most incredible hardships in the manner I have narrated before. He joined us in our prayer-meeting with much good will. Now all the survivors of our party were together again. There is one Georgia minister I will always remember with gratitude, not that he was a Union man, for I have no evidence that he was, but because of his generosity to us. He was a Methodist clergyman in Atlanta, by the name of McDonnell. He came to visit us at the suggestion of our old jailor, who, seeing us engaged in religious exercises, naturally supposed we would like to talk with a preacher. We received him kindly, and an interesting conversation took place. Some of the boys were slightly offended by his first prayer, in which he petitioned that our lives might be spared, if consistent with the _interests of the Confederacy_. We did not very well like the condition, but said nothing, and were afterward rewarded for our complacency. At my request, he loaned us a few books, and when these were read through, gave us still others, until we had read nearly his entire library. Those only who know what a terrible weariness it is to pass time without any definite employment, and with no means of relieving the hours that hang so heavily on their hands, or of diverting their thoughts from the one never-ending round, can form any idea of the great boon that a few good books bestowed on us. Our provision here became worse and less, until it very nearly reached the starvation point. For some months, the only food we received was a very short allowance of corn-bread, baked with all the bran in it, and without salt, with a little pork, mostly spoiled! Frequently the pork would be completely covered with maggots, and disgusting as it was, hunger compelled us to eat it! Even then, there was not enough of this miserable fare to satisfy our appetites! What would those who spend their time in denouncing our government as the only enemy, and sympathize with "our mistaken Southern brethren," who have been alienated by the misconduct of the loyal States, say, if these "brethren" had subjected them to the same treatment. Their sympathies would hardly have survived the trial. Dreary as the days were here, yet we did not surrender ourselves to gloomy forebodings and vain lamentings over our misfortunes. Although the fate of our companions seemed suspended over our heads by a single hair, yet we shunned despondency, and labored to provide such amusements as would relieve us of the heavy tedium of our prison-life.