But now we are in prison and likely long to stay, The Yankees they are guarding us, no hope to get away; Our rations they are scanty, 'tis cold enough to freeze,-- I wish I was in Georgia, eating goober peas. Peas, peas, peas, peas, Eating goober peas; I wish I was in Georgia, eating goober peas. --_Stanza of a Prison Song_. Only about two weeks did we abide in the Old Capitol, the officers being transported to Johnson's Island, and the privates to other prisons. Our route was by Harrisburg, and as the train was leaving the city it jumped the track, jolting horribly on the cross-ties, but inflicting no serious injury. The Sandusky river before it passes through its narrow mouth into Lake Erie widens into a beautiful bay about four miles wide. In this bay is situated Johnson's Island, low and level, and containing three hundred acres. It is not in the middle of the bay, but is on the north side, half a mile from the main land, while on the other side it is three or more miles from the city of Sandusky across the water. The prison walls enclosed a quadrangular space of several acres, the southern wall running along the margin of the bay and facing Sandusky. They were framed of wooden beams, on the outer side of which, three feet from the top, there was a narrow platform on which the guard kept continual watch. Thirty feet from the wall all around on the inside there was driven a row of whitewashed stobs, beyond which no prisoner was allowed to go on pain of being shot by the sentinels. At night the entire space within was illuminated by lamps and reflectors fixed against the walls. Within the walls there were eleven large wooden buildings of uniform size, two stories high. The first four were partitioned into small rooms, and were sheathed; the remaining seven had two rooms on each floor, and they afforded no protection against the weather except the undressed clapboards that covered them. In each house the upper story was reached by an outside flight of steps. In the larger rooms some sixty or seventy men were huddled together. Around the sides bunks were framed on pieces of scantling that extended from floor to ceiling, arranged in three tiers, so that a floor space of six feet by four sufficed for six men. My cotton tick was never refilled, and after doing service for many months it became flat and hard. Our quarters and accommodations were such as the Yankees thought good enough for rebels and traitors, but in summer we were uncomfortably and unhealthily crowded, and in winter we suffered from the cold, because one stove could not warm so large and windy an apartment. Many a winter night, instead of undressing, I put an old worn overcoat over the clothes I had worn during the day. At first I "put up" in block No. 9, afterward in No. 8, and toward the end of my imprisonment in No. 3, which was much more comfortable.