“Could I see _her_,” Isaac said one day, “or even stand again beneath the Federal Flag, I might get better, but here I shall surely die, and if I do, oh, Captain Carleton, you’ll get them to send me home, won’t you? I don’t care for myself where I am buried, but my mother—it would break her heart to hear I was put with the negroes. She’s a rough woman, and folks who don’t know her much, thinks she’s cross and queer, but she’s been _so_ good to me, and I love her so much! Oh, mother, mother, I wish she was here now,” and the sick boy turned his white face to the wall, sobbing out choking sobs which seemed to come from the lowest depths of his heart. Cries for home and mother were not uncommon in that prison house, but there was something so piteous in his childlike wail that other officers than Tom bent over the poor lad, trying to comfort him by telling of an exchange which, it was hoped would ere long be effected, and by painting happy pictures of the glad rejoicing which would greet the returning captives. For an instant the great tears, dropping so fast from Isaac’s lids, were staid in their course, and a smile of hope shone on his pallid face, but quickly passed away as he suggested, “Yes, but who knows if _I_ will be on the list?” No one could tell him that. All would not go, they knew, and they could only wait patiently, each hoping _he_ would be the favored one. At last there came a day, never to be forgotten by the inmates of that tobacco house, a day on which was read the names of those who were to be released and breathe again the air of freedom. Oh, how anxiously the sick boy listened as one after another was called. “Captain Thomas Carleton” was among the number, and a deep flush stole to the young man’s face as uncertainty was thus made sure. _He_ was going home, and like waves upon the beach, the throbs of joy beat around his heart, making him glad as a little child when returning to its mother after a long separation.