“My dear Annie,” he wrote, “I do not know that this letter will ever reach you. I have but little hope that it will. Still it is worth trying for, and so here in this terrible place, whose horrors no pen or tongue can adequately describe, I am writing to you, who I know think sometimes of the poor wretch starving and dying by inches in Andersonville. Oh, Annie, you can never know what I have suffered from hunger and thirst, and exposure and filth, which makes my very blood curdle and creep, and from that weary homesickness which more than aught else kills the poor boys around me. When I first came here I thought I could not endure it, and though I knew I was not prepared, I used to wish that I might die; but a little drummer boy from Michigan, who took to me from the first, said his prayers one night beside me, and the listening to him carried me back to you, who, I felt sure, prayed for me each day. And so hope came back again, with a desire to live and see your dear face once more. My little drummer boy, Johnny, was all the world to me, and when he grew too sick to sit or stand, I held his poor head in my lap, and gave up my rations to him, for he was almost famished, and ate eagerly whatever was brought to us. We used to say the Lord’s Prayer together every night, when a certain star appeared, which he playfully called his ‘mother,’ saying it was her eye watching over him. It was a childish fancy, but we grow childish here, and I, too, have given that star a name. I call it ‘Annie,’ and I watch its coming as eagerly as did the little boy, who died just as the star reached the zenith and was shining down upon him. His head was in my lap, and all there was left of my coat I made into a pillow for him, and held him till he died. His mother’s address is ——, Michigan. Write to her, Annie, and tell her how Johnny died in the firm hope of meeting her again in heaven. Tell her he did not suffer much pain,—only a weakness, which wasted his life away. Tell her the keepers were kind to him, and brought him ice-water several times. Tell her, too, of the star at which he gazed so long as he had strength. “It was all the companion I had after he was gone until Bill Baker came. I shall never forget that day. I had crawled up to my sand bank, and drawn my rags around me, and was beginning to wish again that I could die, when a broad hand was laid upon my shoulder, and a voice which was music to me then, if it never had been before, said to me cheerily, ‘Hallo, old Corp’ral! Such are the chances of war! Give us your fist!’ But when he saw what a sorry jaded wretch I was, his chin began to quiver, and we cried together like two great babies as we were.