_Wednesday, 15th._--To-day, I followed Dr. Hay's trail all day, bent on a personal interview, until I earthed him at last in his office; and the result is that we are off for Richmond to-morrow. [I had seen the Richmond paper with the official list of Yankees paroled from the Libby, among whom were several whom I knew to be Pope's officers; and I determined not to rot another day, as food for Confederate vermin, without claiming my rights as prisoner of war. So when, after repeated rebuffs, my obstinacy prevailed and Hay gave orders to let me in, he wasn't in a good humor. But I told him, I forget in what terms, that I had discovered that I was no longer a hostage liable to be hanged in retaliation for the execution of guerrillas, but a prisoner of war, with all that that implied, and that, in behalf of all who were able to travel, I demanded to be sent to the Libby. He said we were better off where we were. I agreed, but told him I would suffer anything to know that my name was on the list to be paroled when my turn came, and that it was my right to have it there. Finally he said, "Will you be ready to start before light to-morrow?" "Let me go back for my blanket," said I, "and I'll start now." "Well," said he, "go back, and tell all who the ward surgeon says are able, to be ready by half-past four." I saluted, faced about, and was in the doorway when he stopped me and, seeming to recover his temper, asked me and any of my friends who could to come over to his office after supper and take a farewell drink.] In the evening [the journal resumes], we attended in Dr. Hay's office, to take a social drink. Hay talked fire and fury, "secesh" running up as the whiskey ran down. A lawyer and colonel joined in, and the telegram of the Governor of North Carolina to the Governor of South Carolina was so often quoted that I was fain to back down from what was fast becoming a three-minute crowd. We had an amputation to diversify the spree,--soldier brought in, who I suspect had applied for a discharge by shooting off two fingers of his right hand. They were badly mangled, so Hay put him down on the floor and took them off again, short metre, not without cutting his own in the operation, he was so tight. I came away then, fearing that my crutches might not be as whiskey-proof as erst was wooden leg of Sawin, and the descent of the front steps requiring that eye, hand, and foot (literally, foot) should keep true time. There wasn't much sleep in No. 7 that night, and early next morning we were off, leaving George and the skeleton sergeant, who is fast going down to the dead, though he doesn't know it. We had an awful trip, being detained six hours by a smash-up of the night before, killing seven and wounding seventy-five,--a mere skirmish. Shortly before we arrived, at about 1 A.M., an officer came through the car, caught sight of my shoulder-straps, stopped: "You are a captain?" "Yes." "Have you got any federal greenbacks?" "Yes, a