But after a miserable jolt of fifteen miles, our nigger driver pointed out the boat lying in a distant bend. "And dar de flag," said he with a grin, "ober de starn," indicating a small red streak, which was "the star-spangled banner, Oh, long may it wa-a-ve," etc. I confess to embracing the staff when I got aboard, and realized that Jeff. Davis himself couldn't take me away without a fight. But before they let us go aboard there was a long and to us incomprehensible delay of nearly two hours, during which we lay on the grass just above the landing and watched the boat, the flag, and the blue uniforms, with longing eyes. [We learned afterward that Captain Peacock, while strutting up and down the wharf in full Confederate uniform, had been recognized by one of the deck hands who had belonged to his former New York regiment. The said deck hand pointed him out to a friend, with the remark, "Look at his forehead, and you'll see traitor written there." This being overheard by Mr. Peacock, he demanded an apology for the insult, swearing that, if refused, he would march us all back to the Libby. How they pacified him I don't know, but at the end of two hours he had cooled off enough to let us go aboard. I was the first who received permission to go, whereat I bounced on to my one foot and two crutches, picked up my blanket, and charged down the hill. The rebel sentry, who hadn't yet got his orders to pass us, charged bayonets on me for an instant, but, on a sign from Peacock, shouldered arms again; and the next moment I was embracing the flag-staff, as afore mentioned. The Sanitary Commission received us with open arms and some delicious milk-punch, and in a few minutes we were under full steam out of rebeldom, Sergeant Holloway and I leaning on the guards, watching the foam fly past, and singing, _sotto voce_,--"We're going home, we're going home, we're going home to die no more!" We were two days on board the flag-of-truce boat. The next cot to mine was occupied by a man of a Massachusetts regiment, taken at the first Bull Run. He was almost a skeleton, and the worst case of chills and fever I ever saw. The second day being a shake day, he couldn't eat his rations, and offered them to me. He said he thought he was dying. "But," said he, "I don't complain now I've got out of hell, and I shall live long enough to get back into God's country and die there, which is all I've been praying for for months."] _Monday._--Aboard the "Commodore," off Fortress Monroe, waiting for orders, which have just come, for Washington. And here we are at Washington, waiting orders again. When I find myself once more a free man in Willard's Hotel, I shall turn down the leaf of my experiences as prisoner of war to the rebels.