Our rations here were of fair quality but small in quantity, consisting of a pint of corn meal, a little sorghum syrup and a teaspoonful of salt once in two days. Meat of any kind was not issued, from this time on it was relegated to the historic past. The weather was pleasant, the days not too hot and the nights not too cool. About nine o’clock a sea breeze would spring up which felt to us, after having lived in the furnace-like atmosphere of Andersonville, like a breeze from the garden of the Gods. About nine o’clock in the evening a land breeze would set in and would blow until sunrise then die away to give place to the sea breeze. I used to sit up till midnight drinking in the delightful air and watching the track of the great shells thrown by the “Swamp Angel” battery. Gilmore gave Charleston no rest day nor night. The “Hot bed of Secession” got a most unmerciful pounding. The whole of the lower part of the city was a mass of ruins, the upper part was then receiving the attention of our batteries on James Island. It was a grand sight at night to watch the little streak of fire from the fuse of those three hundred pound shells as it rose higher and higher toward the zenith and having reached the highest point of the arc, to watch it as it sped onward and downward until suddenly a loud explosion told that its time was expired and the sharp fragments were hurled with an increased velocity down into the devoted city. Sometimes a shell would not explode until it had made its full journey and landed among the buildings or in the streets and then havoc and destruction ensued. The most of the people lived in bomb proofs, which protected them from the fragments of the shells which exploded in the air, but were not proof against those which exploded after striking. A little episode occurred one day that created quite a panic among both prisoners and guards. Suddenly and without warning, a large solid shot came rolling and tumbling through camp, from the north; this was followed by another, and then another. This was getting serious. What the Dickens was the matter? Where did these shots come from? were questions that any and all of us, could and did ask, but none could answer. But in this case, the rebel guard and officers, were in danger as well as Yanks, and a courier was dispatched in hot haste to inquire into the why and wherefore. It turned out that a rebel gunboat, on the Cooper River, was practicing at a target and we were getting the benefit of it.