But, in the course of six weeks, more powerful influences than Mr. Shipman’s gentle reasoning were undermining my resolve to remain as a prisoner. These were the increase in sickness, the horrors of the prison, the oily atmosphere, the ignominious cartage of the dead, the useless flight of time, the fear of being incarcerated for years, which so affected my spirits that I felt a few more days of these scenes would drive me mad. Finally, I was persuaded to accept with several other prisoners the terms of release, and enrolled myself in the U. S. Artillery Service, and, on the 4th June, was once more free to inhale the fresh air. But, after two or three days’ service, the germs of the prison-disease, which had swept so many scores of fine young fellows to untimely graves, broke out with virulence in my system. I disguised my complaint as much as was possible, for, having been a prisoner, I felt myself liable to be suspected; but, on the day of our arrival at Harper’s Ferry, dysentery and low fever laid me prostrate. I was conveyed to the hospital, and remained there until the 22nd June, when I was discharged out of the service, a wreck. My condition at this time was as low as it would be possible to reduce a human being to, outside of an American prison. I had not a penny in my pocket; a pair of blue military trousers clothed my nethers, a dark serge coat covered my back, and a mongrel hat my head. I knew not where to go: the seeds of disease were still in me, and I could not walk three hundred yards without stopping to gasp for breath. As, like a log, I lay at night under the stars, heated by fever, and bleeding internally, I thought I ought to die, according to what I had seen of those who yielded to death. As my strength departed, death advanced; and there was no power or wish to resist left in me. But with each dawn there would come a tiny bit of hope, which made me forget all about death, and think only of food, and of the necessity of finding a shelter. Hagerstown is but twenty-four miles from Harper’s Ferry; but it took me a week to reach a farm-house not quite half-way. I begged permission to occupy an out-house, which may have been used to store corn, and the farmer consented. My lips were scaled with the fever, eyes swimming, face flushed red, under the layer of a week’s dirt--the wretchedest object alive, possibly, as I felt I was, by the manner the good fellow tried to hide his disgust. What of it? He spread some hay in the out-house, and I dropped on it without the smallest wish to leave again. It was several days before I woke to consciousness, to find a mattress under me, and different clothes on me. I had a clean cotton shirt, and my face and hands were without a stain. A man named Humphreys was attending to me, and he was the deputy of the farmer in his absence. By dint of assiduous kindness, and a diet of milk, I gained strength slowly, until I was able to sit in the orchard, when, with open air, exercise, and