So the conference ended sadly. As I was leaving his office he introduced me to a Confederate soldier who sat there and who had heard the whole conversation. Next day this soldier entered the prison by permission of Colonel Smith and brought me some nice wheat bread, some milk, pickles, and other food, a pair of thick woolen stockings, and a hundred dollars in Confederate money. He gave me his name, John F. Ficklin, of the Virginia _Black Horse Cavalry_. He whispered to me that he was at heart a Union man, but had been forced by circumstances to enter the Confederate service; that by simulating illness he had got relieved from duty at the front and assigned to service at Colonel Smith's headquarters; that he was confident he could bring about such an arrangement for reciprocal supplies as I had proposed, and had so informed Smith, who approved of the plan; that until such a plan should be put in operation he would furnish me from his own table. He said to me very privately that he was greatly moved by what I had said the day before. "But," he added, "I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee that the Confederacy can't last very long; certainly not a year. I give it till next September; and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to stand well with you officers." At my suggestion he gave a few other prisoners food and money. In a few days I was again called to headquarters to meet a Mr. Jordan, who, through Ficklin's efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son, Henry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North Carolina Regiment, was at that time a prisoner at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to make out a list of articles which he wished my relatives to send to his son. In a day or two he did so. I likewise made out a statement of my immediate wants, as follows: Wood for cooking; Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon; Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar; Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses; Or any other substantial food. I asked Jordan to send me those things _at once_. He answered after some delay that he would do so immediately on receiving an acknowledgment from his son that my friends had furnished him what he wanted; and he would await such a message! As my relatives were in Massachusetts and Connecticut, it would take considerable time for them to negotiate with the prison commandant and other parties in Ohio and have the stipulations distinctly understood and carried into effect there. Besides, there were likely to be provoking delays in communicating by mail between the north and the south, and it might be a month or six weeks before he got assurances from his son; by which time I should probably be in a better world than Danville, and in no need of wood, food, or table-ware. I wrote him to that effect, and requested him to make haste, but received no reply.