It was now reported that Sherman was on our track, devastating Northern Georgia. Accordingly, on the first of October, the guard was marched in and we were surrounded in the yard behind the hospital. The parole which we had signed was then produced, torn to pieces before our eyes, and declared at an end. We were then marched out, taken to the depot, put into some old dirty cars and transported to Columbia. Here we were unloaded, marched across Broad River, over a long, covered bridge, to an old pasture of about three acres, around which had been ploughed two furrows. One of these was designated the line for the guards beat; the other (inside), the _dead_ line. Into this pasture we were herded like so many sheep, without shade or shelter. Our rations were reduced, so that each of us received but a little over a pint of dirty old corn meal a day, and a little sorghum molasses. I had a quart cup and, after washing my meal, had just enough left to make one quart of mush with a sorghum dressing. Think of it, reader, you who have enough and to spare, and have no taste for sorghum molasses, how you would have relished this delightful fare; yet we were forced to accept it by the demands of hunger, and because we were captives to Southern chevaliers. We named our quarters (the prison) "Camp Sorghum." The commandant, whose name I cannot now recall, was a colonel of the rebel army, and really a kind-hearted man; and I really believe that, had he been able, he would have made our circumstances comfortable; but he was a creature of circumstances and could not control his superiors. He was gentlemanly and courteous to us, and granted us privileges we had never been allowed before; he permitted us to go out to the woods under guard, and gather limbs and boughs from trees with which to make some kind of shelter to protect us from the cold, fall rains. A second lieutenant and myself dug a hole in the ground about three feet wide, seven long and two feet deep, covered it over with limbs and dirt, leaving a small hole at one end to serve as an entrance and exit. This was not original with us, as many similar ones had been made before, nor was it convenient to get in and out of, but by pulling our feet up under us we could manage to keep partially dry and warm.