The prisoners, over a thousand strong, were formed in line and ordered to march. As they tramped along the dusty road, they strained their eyes, eagerly, but furtively, for the first show of their prison. Seeing tents on the left, there was a little stir among them, but that proved to be a Rebel camp; then some one spied heights topped with cannon, and "Now," said they, "we are close upon it," and then stopped short for wonder, for here the road ended, ran butt against the wall of a huge roofless inclosure, made of squared pines set perpendicularly and close together in the ground. "Is it a pen?" asked one, doubtfully. "Yes, yours," retorted one of the guard, with a grin,--"the Stockade Prison." The word ran down the line like a shiver, and the men stood mute, eying each other doubtfully. And now, if I could, I would get at your hearts, you who read this, and you should not read mistily, and hold the story at loose ends as it were, but feel by the answering throb within yourselves what thoughts gnawed at the hearts of these men under their brave show of indifference: for though these be facts, facts written are disembodied, and, like spirits, have no power to speak to you, unless you give them the voice of your sympathy; and without that, I question which touches you most deeply, a thousand rats following the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and wondering, as he neared the wharves, where the Deuse they were going, or the thousand Union soldiers standing stunned before a gate from which should have wailed forth, as they filed through, "_Leave all hope behind!_"